The UA ZIP Code Keepsake

When asked to write your address, do you write “Columbus” or “Upper Arlington"?” In reality, it does not matter, as long as your zip code is correct.

This keepsake celebrates Upper Arlington’s three zip codes — 43220, 43221, and 43212. Assignment is based on location of postal delivery units (operations at the 43221 postal service were suspended and temporarily moved to 43220 in 2021 due to construction).

When were ZIP Codes created?

“On July 1, 1963, the United States Postal Service (USPS) introduces the Zone Improvement Plan (ZIP) as part of a plan to improve the speed of mail delivery, inaugurating the use of machine-readable ZIP codes to facilitate the efficient sorting of mail at a national level.

The idea wasn’t totally new. In 1943, the Post Office had created numbered zones for more than 100 urban areas around the country. But in the post-WWII boom, that system quickly became inadequate. Between 1943 and 1962, annual mail volume doubled from 33 billion to 66.5 billion pieces, and the average mailed letter passed through an average of 17 sorting stops. Suburbs were sprouting exponentially, and mail transport was shifting from railway to highway and air, making old urban hub systems obsolete.

In 1983, with the complexity and volume of mail increasing exponentially, the USPS introduced an extended code called ZIP+4.”

(Excerpts from: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/u-s-post-office-introduction-of-zip-codes)

What do the numbers in the ZIP code stand for?

Here is what the Postal Service had to say in their 1963 annual report:

“the five-digit ZIP number is a structured code in which the first digit identifies one of ten large areas of the Nation, and the second digit indicates a State, a geographic portion of a heavily populated State, or two or more less populated States. The third digit identifies a major destination area within a State, which may be a large city post office or a major mail concentration point (Sectional Center) in a less populated area. Five hundred fifty-three of these Sectional Centers have been designated across the country. The final two digits indicate either a postal delivery unit of a larger city post office, or an individual post office served from a Sectional Center.”

(Excerpt from: https://guides.loc.gov/this-month-in-business-history/july/zip-code-introduced#note_2)

Upper arlington’s identity crisis

In 1987, our community leaders asked the Columbus Postmaster to designate a ZIP code and post office exclusively for Upper Arlington. Citing a “logistical nightmare” with such a change to sorting mail, the US Postal Service declined to create this unique identifier for UA.

In response, the community began a “We are U.A.” campaign, encouraging both education that we are not Columbus and instruction to write “Upper Arlington” in individual correspondence. These efforts made front page news in The Dispatch.

- Loscocco, Laurie. “This is Upper Arlington, Isn’t It,” The Columbus Dispatch, April 26, 1987, p. 1A