Special Delivery: The Era When Americans Could Legally Mail Themselves
When the Mail Got Personal
The United States Postal Service has handled some unusual packages over the years, but nothing quite prepared them for the day they had to explicitly ban shipping people. What sounds like a bureaucratic fever dream actually happened, thanks to a regulatory loophole so obvious that it's amazing nobody saw it coming.
In 1913, the USPS launched its new Parcel Post service, designed to compete with private shipping companies by handling larger packages. The regulations were comprehensive, listing prohibited items like explosives, liquids, and perishable goods. But in their thoroughness, postal officials overlooked one crucial category: live human beings.
The Inspiration Behind the Madness
The idea wasn't entirely original. Henry "Box" Brown had famously mailed himself to freedom from slavery in 1849, hidden in a wooden crate for 27 hours during his journey from Richmond to Philadelphia. His story became legendary, inspiring both abolitionists and, decades later, a few individuals with questionable judgment.
But Brown's journey had been illegal — a desperate act of survival that succeeded despite breaking numerous laws. What changed in 1913 was that the new Parcel Post regulations created an actual legal pathway for human shipping, at least temporarily.
The Man Who Tested the System
May Pierstorff was four years old when her parents discovered that mailing her to her grandmother's house would cost 53 cents, while a train ticket would cost $1.55. Living in rural Idaho, the Pierstorffs were used to finding creative solutions to everyday problems, but this was ambitious even by frontier standards.
On February 19, 1914, May's parents took her to the post office in Grangeville, Idaho, where postal clerk Leonard Mochel faced a situation not covered in his training manual. After consulting the regulations, Mochel determined that May technically qualified as a package: she weighed under the 50-pound limit for parcels, and nothing in the rules explicitly prohibited shipping children.
May was classified as a "baby chick" shipment, complete with stamps attached to her coat and a mail tag tied to her wrist. Mail carrier Jesse Johnson, who happened to know the family, agreed to "deliver" her on his route to Lewiston.
The Postal Service's Horror
When word reached Washington that a child had been successfully mailed across Idaho, postal officials experienced what can only be described as institutional panic. The story hit newspapers nationwide, with headlines like "Girl Mailed to Grandmother" and "Child Travels by Parcel Post."
Suddenly, postal workers across the country were fielding inquiries about shipping rates for various family members. Parents asked about mailing children to relatives. College students wondered about shipping themselves home for holidays. One entrepreneur reportedly inquired about starting a human delivery service.
The USPS realized they had accidentally created a monster.
Emergency Regulations and Quick Fixes
Within weeks of the Pierstorff incident, Postmaster General Albert Burleson issued an emergency regulation explicitly prohibiting the shipment of human beings via Parcel Post. The new rule stated that "human beings are not mailable" — a sentence that nobody had imagined needing to write.
But the damage was done. The story of May Pierstorff had captured the public imagination, and copycats began emerging. In Ohio, a six-year-old boy was reportedly mailed to his aunt's house before the new regulations took effect. In Pennsylvania, a businessman claimed to have shipped himself to avoid train fare, though postal officials disputed this account.
The Broader Implications
The human shipping loophole revealed something fascinating about how bureaucracies work — or don't work. The postal service had spent months crafting detailed regulations covering every conceivable type of package, yet they had missed the most obvious potential abuse.
Legal scholars noted that the incident highlighted a fundamental challenge in regulatory writing: it's impossible to anticipate every way people might interpret rules. The assumption that nobody would try to mail themselves seemed so basic that it didn't need to be stated — until someone proved that assumption wrong.
Modern Echoes
Today, USPS regulations contain explicit prohibitions against shipping live humans, a rule that exists entirely because of incidents like May Pierstorff's journey. The regulation seems almost comically obvious now, but it serves as a permanent reminder of the postal service's brief, accidental venture into human transportation.
Interestingly, the story has taken on new life in the internet age, with some claiming it's an urban legend. But postal historians have verified the incident through contemporary newspaper accounts and USPS records. May Pierstorff really was mailed across Idaho, and the government really did have to pass a law to prevent it from happening again.
The Lasting Legacy
The Pierstorff incident became a case study in unintended consequences, taught in law schools as an example of how precise language matters in regulatory writing. It also became a favorite story among postal workers, passed down through generations as a reminder that their job involves constant surprises.
May Pierstorff grew up to become a teacher, living a quiet life that was overshadowed by her childhood claim to fame. She remained the most famous person ever legally mailed in the United States — a distinction that, thanks to emergency regulations passed in 1914, she's likely to hold forever.
The next time you're at the post office, take a moment to appreciate the sign listing prohibited items. Somewhere in that fine print is a rule that exists because a four-year-old girl once proved that sometimes the most obvious assumptions are the ones that need to be written down.