Wednesday, April 15, 2015
Finally, a picture of the Chariot!
About 20 years ago I read a book of Ernie Pyle's wartime columns. In a column about Spokane, Pyle mentioned that Spokane was still using horse-drawn carts for mail delivery. Probably the last 'real city' to use horses, though rural and wilderness areas still use mules. The carts resembled chariots, and were supposedly called Postal Chariots. Ever since, I've been sporadically trying to find a picture.
Today we finally have two pictures, casually featured in the 'Getting There' section of the Satan-Review. The article isn't about the Chariot, but apparently the Satan-Review had these pics in their archives.
It does look vaguely like a chariot. Not really what I'd imagined from Pyle's description. It doesn't even look practical. There's no secure or weatherproof storage, so it wouldn't have been better than plain old walking.
Bit later, after expanding and brightening the pics: I was wrong about lack of storage. These two Chariots seem to have different types of storage. One appears to have a sorting tray on top, and the other has a cabinet or box.
¶ 5:49 PM 
