U.S. Postal Service through the years

In an effort to save $2 billion, the cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service plans to stop delivering mail on Saturdays starting Aug. 1. Packages, however, will still be delivered six days a week.

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This painting of the relay of mail at a Pony Express station, entitled "The Coming and Going of the Pony Express," was done by Frederic Remington. The original hangs in the Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art in Tulsa.

/ AP

This image provided by Robert A. Siegel Auction Galleries shows a postmarked envelope from the Central Overland Pony Express Company in January 1861, owned by retired Honolulu newspaper publisher Thurston Twigg-Smith. A few yeas ago, the former publisher auctioned what is believed to be one of three known surviving historic envelopes postmarked on the first day of the Pony Express.

/ AP

Sept. 23, 1911

Postmaster General Frank Harris Hitchcock hands pilot E.I. Ovington the first U.S. mail bag to be carried by airplane.

/ AP

September 1918

The first air mail from Chicago is rushed from airplane to truck in New York. Pilot Max Miller, who made the flight between the two cities in eight hours, watches the transfer of the mail.

/ AP

Aug. 26, 1930

A postman delivers the mail on a rural route in York County, Maine.

National Archives / Getty Images

Oct. 15, 1950

Capt. Leo Roesser, left, of Rochester, N.Y., and his crew pose with mail bags full of news from home for U.S. service members in Korea.

/ AP

March 18, 1970

Mail carriers shout as they picket General Post Office in New York. The strike, apparently the first in the agency's history, was over wages and in defiance of federal anti-strike laws.

File / AP

Aug. 10, 1997

Mail handler Otis Harewood of Boston sorts through nearly double the normal load of packages at the U.S. Post Office's priority mail building in Boston as workers struggled to get control of a huge overflow of mail after a strike.

Steven Senne / AP

Aug. 20, 1986

A postal employee is consoled after a shooting spree that left 15 people dead at the Edmond, Okla., post office. Six people were also injured in the shooting.

David Longstreath / AP

April 3, 2010

Mail carrier Darryl Garland works at the Waldorf post office in Maryland.

Mark Gail / The Washington Post

July 14, 2009

A sign is seen in front of the public mailbox outside the town hall in Otisfield, Maine. The U.S. Postal Service had proposed removing the box, the town's only public mailbox, in the name of efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

Joel Page / AP

Dec. 5, 2011

Mail carrier Felipe Raymundo moves a tray of mail at a post office in Seattle to his truck to begin delivery. The cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service says it is seeking to move quickly to close 252 mail processing centers and slow first-class delivery next spring, citing steadily declining mail volume. The cuts are part of $3 billion in reductions aimed at helping the agency avert bankruptcy next year.

Elaine Thompson / AP

March 2, 2010

Kevin Pownall delivers mail in Philadelphia. U.S. Postal Service plant closures are expected to result in the elimination of about 28,000 jobs nationwide.

Matt Rourke / AP

Nov. 30, 2011

Tom Richardson, right, from the National Association of Letter Carriers, protests in Portland, Ore. The post office is struggling to respond to lower mail volume as a result of a shift to online communication and bill payments.

Rick Bowmer / AP

Dec. 5, 2011

A customer gets stamps at a post office in San Jose.

Paul Sakuma / AP

Jan. 31, 2008

Customer Maria Gonzalez checks the weight of her parcel at an Automated Postal Center inside a post office in Los Angeles. The Postal Service has tried to cut costs through measures such as installing kiosks to reduce labor-intensive window transactions.

Damian Dovarganes / AP

Oct. 27, 1998

Empty mail sacks sit on the back porch of the post office near the center of the small town of Columbia, Conn.

Brad Clift / AP

Dec. 5, 2011

A customer places first-class stamps on envelopes at a post office in San Jose.

Paul Sakuma / AP

Feb. 6, 2013

Packages sit in a bin at a U.S. Post Office in California in this 2012 file photo. The U.S. Postal Service is expected to announce Wednesday that it plans to stop delivering mail on Saturday, but it will still continue to deliver packages. This means that for the first time Americans will receive mail only five days a week.

Justin Sullivan / GETTY IMAGES

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