Memphis Commercial Appeal Mid-South Memories April 18, 2012
April 18, 1912 Memphis will not have automobile mail service. The contract for transporting the mail from the Post Office to the depots and back has been awarded to Dr. J.T. Spence for $9000 a year. He will use the screened wagons that have carried the mails for the past eight years, the use of automobiles being too high in cost.
Around 1912 the automobile was seen as an answer to the pressing pollution problem of the day in major cities such as Chicago and New York, what to do with the mountains of horse manure discarded from the streets. Brownstone homes in New York were built with elevated first floors to escape manure ladened rain run-off from seeping into street level homes.