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How does mail get delivered to freighters on the Detroit River? See it in this awesome video

Posted at 3:41 PM, Nov 23, 2020
and last updated 2020-11-23 15:41:52-05

Have you ever wondered how workers on freighters traveling through the Great Lakes and Detroit River get mail? A new video posted to Facebook shows exactly how!

Video from the Interlake Steamship Company and Andrew Russel shows mail being delivered to the Lee A. Tregurtha on Saturday on the Detroit River.

In the video, the J.W. Westcott, a U.S. Postal Service boat, and the only floating zip code in the country, pulls alongside the ship near the Ambassador Bridge.

A crew member then lowers a bucket and it is filled with mail, and raised back onto the ship. They call it "mail in the pail."

According to the J.W. Westcott website, the mail boat has a ZIP code of 48222 and delivers mail to ships throughout the area and became an official USPS boat in 1948.