I heard that story as well. Good thing his mom didn’t live in Wilbraham. More useless info: the zipcodes break into 2 sections: first 3 numbers are the Sectional Concentration Facility where the mail for that number is sorted. The last 2 are the old zone numbers. I learned this when I worked for the PO in the early 70’s and the SCFs may have changed names. Don Lesser Pioneer Training, Inc. 139B Damon Road, Ste 8 Northampton, MA 01060 (413) 387-1040 (413) 586-0545 (fax) <mailto:dlesser at ptraining.com> dlesser at ptraining.com <http://www.ptraining.com/> www.ptraining.com From: hidden-discuss-bounces at lists.hidden-tech.net [mailto:hidden-discuss-bounces at lists.hidden-tech.net] On Behalf Of Shel Horowitz Sent: Thursday, June 23, 2016 8:32 PM To: Doug Lowing <delowing at gmail.com> Cc: HT-discuss <hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net> Subject: Re: [Hidden-tech] Lead Zero issue in Excel Important: whatever system you set up should also be able to accommodate non-US postal codes, like the mix of letters and numbers in Canada or Britain, and of course postal code formats can be different lengths in different countries. As for the system origin, I have some actual info on this: On Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 4:26 PM, Doug Lowing <delowing at gmail.com <mailto:delowing at gmail.com> > wrote: That is because the creator of ZIP codes lived in New England, and the ZIP codes start in his mom's home town. Perhaps real, perhaps apocryphal, but a nice story. I'm voting for apocryphal. A postal employee once explained to me that it's alphabetical within geographic region.The regions start in New England with leading zeros and more-or-less migrate south and west with larger numbers--though NJ and Puerto Rico both have leading zeros for some reason--probably because NY and PA didn't leave any more room in the 1s. But NY/PA have leading 1s, MD/DC/VA and I think NC start with 2, and by the time you get to GA and FL, they start with 3. Ohio starts again on the country's northern border with 4. Thus, Agawam, MA is 01001, Amherst is 01002-01004 except that North Amherst is alphabetized under N, 01059. That's why Leeds is 01053 while the rest of Northampton/Florence is 0106x, and Leverett is 01054. There are anomalies, especially within cities and newer developments, but the pattern holds at least under a macro lens. So if you ever wondered why Leeds, Leverett and Ludlow have similar zipcodes when they're not near each other, now you know. The regions in the Pioneer Valley and Western Massachusetts are: 1. 010, Hampshire/Hampden Counties except Springfield and parts of southern Franklin (e.g., Whately) 2. 011, City of Springfield 3. 012, Berkshire County 4. 013, most of Franklin County Shel Horowitz - "The Transformpreneur"(sm) ________________________________________________ Watch (and please share) my TEDx Talk, "Impossible is a Dare: Business for a Better World" <http://www.ted.com/tedx/events/11809> http://www.ted.com/tedx/events/11809 Contact me to bake in profitability while addressing hunger, poverty, war, and catastrophic climate change Twitter: @shelhorowitz * First business ever to be Green America Gold Certified * Inducted into the National Environmental Hall of Fame <http://goingbeyondsustainability.com/> http://goingbeyondsustainability.com <http://transformpreneur.com/> http://transformpreneur.com mailto: <mailto:shel at greenandprofitable.com> shel at greenandprofitable.com * <tel:413-586-2388> 413-586-2388 Award-winning, best-selling author of 10 books. Latest: Guerrilla Marketing to Heal the World (co-authored with Jay Conrad Levinson) _________________________________________________ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.hidden-tech.net/pipermail/hidden-discuss/attachments/20160624/beb2119f/attachment-0001.html