The Barefoot Mailman Author:Theodore Pratt Among the unique mail carriers of all time are the barefoot mailmen of Florida. The route of these men was the better part of a hundred-mile stretch of beach along the wild roadless southeast coast. They found it easier to walk barefoot on the soft, giving sand and had a special technique for being an accomplished beach "walkist... more »". It took three days each way for the carrier between Miami and Palm Beach to cover his route, he walked nearly seven thousand miles each year, usually under a broiling sun, sometimes through hurricanes. The mail was transported this way from the very early days until the Nineties, at which time the building of the railroad changed the aspect of life, questionably for the better.
Little recognition has been taken of the barefoot mailmen. The United States Post Office Department has retained no record of them, though in the West Palm Beach Post Office there as six excellent murals, executed by Steven Dohanos, depicting the carriers ...« less