As the USPS announces plans to stop delivering letters and other first-class mail on Saturdays, LIFE.com offers a series of pictures made by LIFE photographers through the years — images that pay tribute to mail carriers and to the old-school postal service as a whole.
The postman delivers a letter to Indiana's Eder family from son Bill, serving in the Navy, 1944. (Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)
The postman delivers a letter to Indiana's Eder family from son Bill, serving in the Navy, 1944. (Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)