A century one package at a time

Working out of a basement office in Seattle, James Casey and Claude Ryan borrowed a hundred dollars and started the American Messenger Co. in 1907. They hired other teenagers like themselves to run errands and carry notes for customers by foot or bicycle. In 1913 the young men merged their messenger business with a package delivery firm owned by Evert McCabe, naming the new venture Merchants Parcel Delivery. With the addition of McCabe's motorcycles and Model-T Ford, they began to consolidate deliveries. Packages were organized by neighborhood to maximize resources while keeping expenses low — a tactic that ...

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From the Print Issue

November 2009

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