Bangs, George S.
George S. Bangs Soundex Code B520
George S. Bangs (1826-1877) invented Fast Mail.
He developed the Railroad Mail Car and the concept of Fast Mail, improving mail service from several weeks to several days, regardless of where in the country the letter was bound.
Born in Akron, Ohio, on Thursday, February 20, 1823, and was the only son of three children born to Samuel and Electra nee: Adams. He traced his lineage to Edward Bangs, a Pilgrim who came to America in 1623 on the ship, Ann, the second of the pilgrim ships to sail from England to America, after the Mayflower.
After finishing schooling, young George was apprenticed as a printer's aide for the Akron Beacon. Tiring of this trade, he moved to Milwaukee, where he was in the boot and shoe making business, until his business partner stole all of their money and disappeared.
He then moved to Aurora, Illinois, in 1851, where he spent the next eighteen years. He had became a successful strawberry farmer while also working on the Akron Beacon. So, in 1858, he bought the Aurora Republican newspaper, which he then consolidated with the Akron Beacon, becoming senior editor for the paper, and making it one of the leading newspapers in the state. While watching the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, he saw Abraham Lincoln as a future politician and was one of the first to suggest Lincoln as a candidate for President in 1860, advocating Lincoln's nomination. When the Civil War started, he joined the 36th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment, and was appointed Lieutenant Colonel. In the meantime, President Lincoln appointed him as Postmaster for Aurora, a job he kept until Monday, April 5, 1869, and during which he familiarized himself with all aspects of postal operations.
Bangs married Sophronia Wetmore, and they would have a daughter, who married Colonel Albert Jenks of the 36th Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment, Bangs' old Union Army regiment. Keeping his hand in the editorial pages of his newspaper, he helped Illinois Governor Richard Yates win reelection, to which Governor Yates appointed him Colonel of the Illinois militia.
Bangs became of a good friend of George Buchanan Armstrong, then head of the Chicago Post Office, and when Armstrong was promoted to General Superintendent for the US Post Office, Armstrong promoted Bangs to Assistant Superintendent of the Chicago Postal Service. It was said that with his great memory, Bangs knew almost all of the postal workers by name, and with his nice disposition, he was almost worshiped by his subordinates.
When Armstrong retired in 1871, he suggested to President Grant that Bangs should replace him, which he did. While the spoils system was the order of the day, Bangs revised the Postal Service to place ability and devotion to duty ahead of political patronage. He reorganized the Postal Service so that a system of checks would find bottlenecks in the mail delivery routes to eliminate, and held district and division superintendents responsible for the efficiency of mail delivery.
In 1875, Bangs created the Fast Mail service, trains made up entirely of mail cars, traveling on expedited schedules designed to accommodate the needs of the Post Office rather than the needs of the traveling public. His first such train ran 900 miles between New York City and Chicago overnight, an almost unheard of delivery speed.
The next year, President Grant offered Bangs the position of Postmaster General, but since this job was a political appointment and Grant's term of office was ending, Bangs declined. The new President, Rutherford B. Hayes, replaced Bangs with a political appointee, and appointed Bangs Assistant Treasurer of the United States, where he served for the next eleven years.
He died six months after retiring from the position of Assistant Treasurer. His concrete grave marker, paid for by postal clerks and other officials who thought highly of Bangs, consists of a shattered oak tree, with a mail train going through a tunnel, symbolizing his life's work. On the tree is the inscription, "George S. Bangs, died Saturday, November 17, 1877, aged 54 years, 8 months, 27 days. His crowning effort, The Fast Mail."
Photos
RPWRHS photo L009-0241 shows Evely Garron, tour guide at Rosehill Cemetery, describing the George S. Bangs monument on Monday, June 10, 1985.
