It happens only once in every 100 years: the date matches the zip code, and for some postal stations, it never happens at all. But in Southwest Colorado, it will occur more than once in the 21st century. Sponsored by Keesee Motor Company and Big-O Tires
It occurs only once every hundred years, so Cortez plans to celebrate. You're watching the Local News Network brought to you by Keesee Motors and Bif O Tires in Cortez. This is a trivial story or more correctly, a story filled with trivia. On August 13th, 2021, the date will align with the Cortez zip code and downtown Cortez plans a celebration for the once in a century event. The Cortez city council is expected to issue a special proclamation commemorating the day and downtown merchants will offer specials and giveaways throughout the day. Cortez postmaster, Kim Haas says she expects to cancel more mail than usual from cancellation collectors. Yes, people do collect postal cancellations in this world.
It's a neat thing. You know, if you work at the post office and your date meets the zip that you work at, and I know there are people in the community that are excited about it and people that collect stamps and cancellations, they, I did a cancellation in my last office a few years ago, and people from different states would send things in for us to cancel with our special canceler. According to the US Postal Service website, date meet zip events are relatively rare, occurring only once a century for some post offices and not at all for many. In Southwest Colorado, Durango's date meets zip occurred on August 13th, 2001. Arboles will experience a date meat zip event on August 11th this year. The next date meet zip event in Southwest Colorado will occur in Bayfield next year on August 11th. A cancellation collector's website calculated that only 191 postal stations out of 41,692 stations nationwide, will experience a date meet zip code event in 2021. That's equal to about one quarter of 1% of all postal stations in the United States. The US Postal Service introduced zip codes in 1963 to better manage mail distribution. Zip stands for Zoning Improvement Plan. Zip numbers range from 00501 for the Internal Revenue Service in Holtsville, New York to 99950 in Ketchikan, Alaska. Now how's that for a Zippy story? Thanks for watching this edition of the Local News Network.
