Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales right
Speaker 1: there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the Cabinet of curiosities. As new products and services
Speaker 1: try to make our lives easier, the people who purchased
Speaker 1: them inevitably do their best to test their limits. After all,
Speaker 1: a new solution might solve an old problem, but it
Speaker 1: can also open up a bunch of new ones to solve.
Speaker 1: Back in the early nineteen hundreds, rural American farmers had
Speaker 1: a major problem that they needed to solve too. If
Speaker 1: they wanted to ship their produce across the country, they
Speaker 1: really only had two options. They could either transport it
Speaker 1: themselves to wherever it had to go, or they could
Speaker 1: have it shift from the nearest city with an express
Speaker 1: mail office. The first option was a non starter because
Speaker 1: no farmers had the means to abandon their farms and
Speaker 1: drive their vegetables from state to state. The latter option
Speaker 1: carried with it a high fee that ate into their profits.
Speaker 1: So when the Post Office unveiled their parcel post service,
Speaker 1: which fit the needs at a much lower price, it
Speaker 1: was welcomed with open arms. Now farmers could shift their
Speaker 1: goods all over the country, right from their homes in
Speaker 1: a true farm to table fashion, and they did the
Speaker 1: first six months of the service saw three hundred million packages.
Speaker 1: Shift weight allowances also increased the more people used the service.
Speaker 1: As customers demanded to ship heavier and larger items. The
Speaker 1: US Post Office had no choice but to keep up.
Speaker 1: The parcel post was a boon for box manufacturers too,
Speaker 1: who were coming up with new designs for shipping all
Speaker 1: manners of items, most of which was food. For example,
Speaker 1: eggs were a popular item to ship. They were actually
Speaker 1: the first thing set by parcel Post post. They left St.
Speaker 1: Louis at twelve or five am to be delivered to
Speaker 1: Illinois by seven pm that evening. They'd come back to St.
Speaker 1: Louis transformed into a cake. But there's always someone who
Speaker 1: will take things too far. W. H. Colethorpe was just
Speaker 1: that man. A contractor who had been tasked with building
Speaker 1: a bank in Vernal, Utah. His new bank would require
Speaker 1: new bricks, and his preferred brick manufacturer was over a
Speaker 1: hundred miles away from the building sites in Salt Lake City. Naturally,
Speaker 1: carrying them by wagon would have um broken the bank,
Speaker 1: so he used parcel post to do the heavy lifting.
Speaker 1: The bricks were mailed one ton at a time in
Speaker 1: a series of fifty pound packages. Postmasters in both towns
Speaker 1: worked day and night to stem the tide of bricks
Speaker 1: building up in their post offices. While all forty tons
Speaker 1: of brick were successfully delivered, about six parcels in total.
Speaker 1: Legislation was amended, limiting daily shipments to a maximum of
Speaker 1: two hundred pounds. The Postmaster General actually wrote a letter
Speaker 1: are announcing the new rule, wherein he said, it is
Speaker 1: not the attempt of the United States Postal Service that
Speaker 1: buildings be shipped through the mail. But as hard as
Speaker 1: it might be believed, a building wasn't the wildest item
Speaker 1: shift using parcel post. No, that honor was reserved for
Speaker 1: the parents of May Piercedorf. May had expressed interest in
Speaker 1: visiting her grandparents, but her folks were struggling and didn't
Speaker 1: have the money for a train ticket. Instead, they came
Speaker 1: up with a far cheaper and more dangerous idea. They
Speaker 1: paid fifty three cents for postage and then attached it
Speaker 1: to her coat. May, not even six years old, had
Speaker 1: just made the fifty pound cut off for a single
Speaker 1: parcel at forty eight and a half pounds. The postmaster
Speaker 1: in Grangeville, Idaho, where her family lived, classified her as
Speaker 1: a baby chick, and then she boarded the trains mail car.
Speaker 1: She traveled roughly seventy five miles to Lewis, de Idaho,
Speaker 1: where she was delivered safely to her grandparents doorstep by
Speaker 1: a mail clerk. Unsurprisingly, after her parents at exercise and frugality,
Speaker 1: regulations were changed again. People could no longer use parcel
Speaker 1: post as their own private transportation service. Of course, that
Speaker 1: didn't stop people from trying again in the future. One
Speaker 1: man tried to save himself the cost of a plane
Speaker 1: ticket by mailing himself from New York City to Dallas
Speaker 1: to visit parents. Like May, he too, managed to survive
Speaker 1: his trip. Crazier still, though, is that he tried this
Speaker 1: just sixteen years ago in two thousand and three. People
Speaker 1: will do anything for their pets, including going into dead
Speaker 1: for them. That no sleeping on the couch rule it
Speaker 1: turns out to be flexible because who can say no
Speaker 1: to that face? Right? The animals that we bring into
Speaker 1: our homes enrich our lives in immeasurable ways, so of course,
Speaker 1: we want to make their lives as comfortable and enjoyable
Speaker 1: as possible. Like many of us, Oliver hazard Perry Belmont
Speaker 1: had a soft spot for the animals he owned, and
Speaker 1: he wanted to make sure their lives were filled with
Speaker 1: the best of the best. You see, Belmont was a
Speaker 1: socialite and a congressman who not only came from money,
Speaker 1: but made quite a lot of it on his own.
Speaker 1: His father, August Belmont, is the namesake of the Triple
Speaker 1: crowned horse race the Belmont Steaks. As you can imagine,
Speaker 1: a love of horses ran in the Belmont blood. August
Speaker 1: Son Oliver wanted a summer hideaway, nothing fancy, just a modest,
Speaker 1: little bungalow where he could entertain small groups of friends
Speaker 1: while he was staying in Newport, Rhode Island. When he
Speaker 1: turned to Louis the thirteenth for inspiration, his humble summer
Speaker 1: retreat quickly transformed into a fifty thousand square foot palace
Speaker 1: that he called Bellcourt. The architect Richard Morris Hunt designed
Speaker 1: the sixty room mansion with multiple ballrooms, a grand staircase,
Speaker 1: and enormous stained glass windows. There was just one problem
Speaker 1: the location. It seems that Belmont didn't like the new
Speaker 1: money that had poured into town and how they built
Speaker 1: their monstrous homes right along Bellevue Avenue in full view
Speaker 1: of everyone passing by. Instead, he had his home set
Speaker 1: far back from the avenue, accessible only via an entrance
Speaker 1: along a side road. Anyone looking at Bellcourt from the
Speaker 1: street would only see the back of the house from
Speaker 1: a distance, as though it had turned away in disgusted.
Speaker 1: The interior of the home displayed heavy influences of French style,
Speaker 1: including elaborate Gothic chandeliers and a staircase that was an
Speaker 1: exact replica of the staircase in a museum in France.
Speaker 1: The walls of the master bedroom featured large murals of
Speaker 1: noblemen going about their daily lives, and the master bathroom
Speaker 1: featured a standing shower, the first of its kind in Newport. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: the master bedroom and all the entertaining spaces were constructed
Speaker 1: on the second floor. The first floor had been reserved
Speaker 1: for Belmont's many four legged housemates. Entrances on the first floor,
Speaker 1: where I had enough to accommodate carriages moving in and
Speaker 1: out of the home. There was also a set of
Speaker 1: eight teak paneled stables. Each one was heated by steam.
Speaker 1: That already sounded pretty fancy for horses, but Belmont went
Speaker 1: several steps further. All of his horses had clothes made
Speaker 1: for morning, noon, and night. They didn't sleep in hay, either,
Speaker 1: but in white linen sheets embroidered with the Belmont crest,
Speaker 1: and the hooks on their harnesses were fashioned out of
Speaker 1: beautiful sterling silver. Belmont's horses clearly lived as luxuriously as
Speaker 1: he did. Richard Morris Hunt, the architect, wasn't sure about
Speaker 1: his client's requests. After all, who had ever heard of
Speaker 1: a home or horses took up the entire first floor.
Speaker 1: And Hunt was no slouch either. He had already designed
Speaker 1: the facade of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the
Speaker 1: giant pedestal that the Statue of Liberty rests upon. So
Speaker 1: it took a lot to make this man worry. But
Speaker 1: he also knew that the decisions weren't really up to him.
Speaker 1: It was the client's money he was spending, and his
Speaker 1: job was to give them whatever they wanted. Bell Court
Speaker 1: that included stuffing and mounting two of Belmont's prized horses
Speaker 1: after they died, and having them placed in his drawing room.
Speaker 1: After Oliver Belmont died in nineteen oh eaight, his unusual
Speaker 1: mansion changed hands several times throughout its long history. It
Speaker 1: was used as a venue for the Newport Jazz Festival,
Speaker 1: but the years haven't always been good to it. Night
Speaker 1: three thieves made off with a million dollars worth of antiques.
Speaker 1: Much of what was stolen was eventually recovered, but several
Speaker 1: priceless historic artifacts were lost forever. It even functioned as
Speaker 1: a museum for a while, with only a fraction of
Speaker 1: the rooms available to view. However, it seems like it's
Speaker 1: been under renovation ever since Belmont died, with rooms changing
Speaker 1: and transforming with each new owner. But no one before
Speaker 1: or since has had the vision to do what Belmont
Speaker 1: did to construct stables beneath the family living quarters just
Speaker 1: so his prized horses could be a little closer and
Speaker 1: a lot more comfortable. And the horses apparently didn't mind.
Speaker 1: After all, there wasn't a single long face among them.
Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities Podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: The show was created by me, Aaron Manky in partnership
Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television
Speaker 1: show and you can learn all about it over at
Speaker 1: the World of Lore dot com. And until next time,
Speaker 1: stay curious, Yeah,