Mailboxes (some are fun) for sale in Tucson

I searched DuckDuckGo (a search engine that doesn't track you) for: tucson mailboxes. Most of the results were for mailbox services like the UPS Stores. But I found photos and listings on Facebook Marketplace:

    https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/tucson/mailboxes/

Most of them are boring undecorated mailboxes, but some listings are for fun maiboxes and places that make custom mailboxes. You don't have to log in to Facebook to see the first few screenfuls. But after that, they'll force you to log in.

Suspected mail thieves caught with AirTag

On February 20, 2023, I posted Mail thief caught on mailbox camera. Last week — August 27, 2024 — the Associated Press published a story with another clever technique:

    California woman fed up with stolen mail sends Apple AirTag to herself to catch thief

(By the way, if you haven't heard of AP, they've been supplying news since 1846 — from very local to worldwide. I suggest looking around their website apnews.org.)

2522 South Calle Yucatan: Day and night

I found this bright box on Sunday, August 4:

It has a daytime side (which happened to be sunlit when I was there)…

…and a nighttime side (in shadow):

Completely different at 3202 East 24th Street

Our November 18, 2014 post showed a mailbox a few blocks south of Reid Park that might have been a covered wagon. On May 28, 2024, I noticed something completely different: a huge letter A (as in the University of Arizona) with a mailbox near the top:

That's one creative Wildcat — or a family of them.

1441 South Palo Verde Avenue: Flowers and handprints

What a sweet mailbox! I found it on May 12, 2024.

5870 / 0785 North Campbell Avenue

This is the first mailbox I've seen with the address forwards on one side and backwards on the other:

I found it on April 16, 2024.

(Not) "Air Mail" box in Chattanooga

Have you been around long enough to remember when there were two ways to send a letter: regular first class mail and air mail? (Regular mail went by train or truck. Air mail went by, uh…). On road trips in the countryside, I saw some homes with two mailboxes by the road. One box was the normal kind near the ground. The other was on a tall post — reaching maybe ten or 20 feet into the air — with a sign saying AIR MAIL.😏

On a road trip in October, 2023, I stopped by the Sculpture Fields at Montague Park in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Although this sculpture is actually “Captain Merkel’s Ramming Dragon” by Verina Baxter (18'x10'x6'9", made in 2015), it reminded me of the old AIR MAIL boxes.

What do you think?

Bright box at 3539 East 28th Street

This blog was quiet for eight months starting August, 2023. I didn't publish the photos here before I stopped posting to the blog. I took them on February 18, 2023:

Hidden in the Garden District: 2216

David Aber spotted this colorful mailbox in the Garden District on April 12th:

Just underneath the front of the mailbox are bright red lips 👄 and a heart 💖 — for the USPS letter carrier, I'll bet 😘:

It's spectacular — and fun. I didn't post it with the address, though. It's 2216 North Sycamore Boulevard.

Thanks, David.

Critters on post at 1806 North Winstel Blvd

Tiny ceramic sculptures are crawling around the tops of two sides of this mailbox post:

I was there on April 4th.

Dancing post at 1730 North Winstel Blvd.

This mailbox has small tiles along both sides of its post that show dancers:

I spotted it on April 4.

2209 North Northway Avenue: The boxes are back (a bit)!

I've had to let the blog rest while I did other things. But when I rolled past this mailbox, I knew I couldn't leave the blog quiet forever…

The “Woofable” makes me think this is a dog. If you have a better idea, please leave a comment below (you can stay anonymous if you'd like) or send me an email from the Contact Us form at the right edge of this page.

I was on the Palo Verde Neighborhood Art in the Gardens tour this past Saturday, April 6.

3302 East 24th Street: Mailbox in a (little) garden

Here's an easy way to dress up a mailbox (and your home): Put it in the middle of a little garden.

This is the third of three mailboxes I found when I was near Reid Park on June 5, 2023.

3234 East 23rd Street: Prickly post

So many people have mailboxes mounted on a metal saguaro that I don't show them on the blog anymore. But I don't think I've seen a prickly pear “post” before!

This is the second of three mailboxes I found when I was near Reid Park on June 5, 2023.

Major football fan at 3149 East 23rd Street

No question which team these folks support!

This is the first of three mailboxes I found near Reid Park on June 5, 2023.

Mailboxes from Tucson Daily Photo ~ blog

The blog Tucson Daily Photo ~ (yes, the name ends with a tilde character) showed mailboxes from time to time. They moved to Instagram in 2021.

In May 2023, I used the search engine DuckDuckGo (a private alternative to Google) to search for mailboxes on that blog. You can click on the search to run it:

    mailbox site:www.tucsondailyphoto.com

2008 at 9020 Soldier Trail

This is the third post in a series. Back in May, I wasted some time doing an image search on DuckDuckGo (a private alternative to Google) for tucson mailboxes. As in the previous post, I found a real estate agent who posted photos of mailboxes. This one, photographed in 2008, was on Soldier Trail: Unique Mailbox on Soldier Trail in Tucson, AZ: a Mailbox Series Update.

San Xavier mailbox

As in the previous post, I wasted some time doing an image search on DuckDuckGo (a private alternative to Google) for tucson mailboxes. I found a photo of the mailbox at San Xavier del Bac Mission by Dan Heller Photography.

He has other interesting angles on San Xavier. Click on one of the smaller photos above the photo of the mailbox.

Cooper Street's blocks for boxes

In 2013, we saw several mailboxes in a few blocks of East Cooper Street: 4012 (June 26th), 4201 (June 5th), and 4240 (June 8th). (If you click on any of those links, use your browser's "Back" button, or back-arrow, to return to this page.)

On November 30, 2022, I was back on Cooper and saw something I hadn't before:

Whattabox!

(I have a lot of new material, so I'm going to start posting weekly for a while — instead of every other week. See you next week!)

2009 mailboxes

(That's the year 2009. Sorry, only four mailboxes here.)

Just for fun, I did an image search on DuckDuckGo (a private alternative to Google) for tucson mailboxes. I found a few 2009 photos from real estate agent Gabrielle Kamahele Rhind, Fun With Mailboxes in Tucson AZ!

This Tucson Mailbox Art blog started in 2012. So someone else had the weird idea first. Kudos to Gabrielle.

1327 South 8th Avenue: Church in 2016

David Aber found this “churchbox” on May 8, 2016. He emailed it to me but I lost track of it — until now.

At the time, he wrote: “It’s between 23rd and 24th Streets. It’s on an empty lot, but Google Earth says the address is 1327 S. 8th Ave. This meshes with the numbers of the surrounding homes.”

A belated thank-you, David!

Mailbox art in Roswell, New Mexico

Mail by Robert Neffson
AMoCA (Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art)
Roswell, NM

On your way to Carlsbad Caverns, or just heading to Roswell for UFO stuff? There are several great places in Roswell to see art. AMoCA is a contemporary art museum that has a lot to like even if you haven't liked contemporary art in the past… there's plenty that's fun as well as more-serious work.

(This painting was on loan from the Roswell Museum and Art Center. I took the photo on October 14, 2022.)

9054 East Calle Kuehn: Cabin

Nothin’ fancy here, folks: a small cabin with a chimney, with probably just enough room to hold the mail.

David Aber found this on February 18, 2023. Thanks for helping keep this blog going while I'm so busy, Dave!

4265 West Dakota Street: Steel mesh and roadrunner

Last time we posted the mailbox Gregg Townsend found at 4330 West Dakota St. Their neighbors at 4265 Dakota were in on the game, too:

I wanted to see the roadrunner on top more clearly. It's a long way to drive fron where I live, so I checked Google Maps Street View and found it:



Thank you, Gregg!

4330 West Dakota Street: Can't miss this mailbox!

Tucson has plenty of bizarre mailboxes. This one is near the top of the list:

Gregg Townsend emailed it yesterday. He wrote “I think the side of 4330 is covered with bicycle reflectors!” So you probably can't miss it day or night.

He also sent a photo of a mailbox nearby; I'll aim to show it sometime soon. Thanks so much, Gregg!

5515 East Hawthorne Avenue: U of A no doubt!

No question about this homeowner's fandom…

Mailbox secure from (almost) everyone: 3614 East 28th Street

You've read about mailbox theft. (Our previous post had a photo showing a mail thief caught in the act.)

Here's another answer:

These property owners can fetch their mail by drone — or maybe a 10-foot ladder.

(I'm not sure if they've given the USPS letter carrier a way to put the mail into the box, though…)

Take a look down to see the some of the rest of their front yard.

Thanks to David Aber for this hilarious photo, probably taken February 18th. (I cut it into two pieces with a photo editor.)

Mail thief caught on mailbox camera

KOLD 13 News in Tucson reports that forty-nine million Americans over the past year have had their mail stolen, according to Security.org, and 19% were from Arizona. This story includes a lot of tips… and a great video clip of the surprised thief when he sees the camera in the mailbox:

    Peoria homeowner captures mail thief on unusual mailbox camera

If you know of such a mailbox camera, please leave a comment below (you can be anonymous) or send me an email with the "Contact Us" form at the right edge of any page on this blog. I'll update this blog post. (By the way, I wonder if a different kind — a zoom camera mounted on your home, with a sign on the mailbox saying “You are on camera!” — would be more effective at preventing theft… but not as fun!)

Update (September 3, 2024): Today's post Suspected mail thieves caught with AirTag has another clever way to catch a mail theif.

4412 East 6th Street: This box is for the bird(s)

On September 9, 2022, David Aber took a photo of a mailbox with a bird nest and a bird on top. It was so amazing that I decided to go there myself and take several more photos — including one that showed this entire, uh, contraption. Thanks, Dave!

First a closeup of the nest (and the bird eating a worm!):

It looks as if the owner may have put fresh grass in the nest?! I was there on December 1; I didn't check. I also don't remember how tall it was (this next photo was taken from the ground looking up) but I'm guessing four feet:

Closer and closer views from the same side:

Wow.

Correo en un museo

I've been on the road for most of two months. (Maybe I should visit Tucson! 😁)

In December I visited MUFI (short for Museo De La Filatelia… Latin America loves acronyms) in Oaxaca, Mexico. It's the Philatelic Museum, showing stamps and money. MUFI is one of the top-rated museums in town, which surprised me until I visited. It's full of unusual and unique stamps — most fairly recent. What gave me the idea of writing about it on the blog was this buzón (mailbox):

For instance, these stamps are from Ukraine:

Even their signs are in the shape of stamps:

Oaxaca is a wonderful city to visit — even if you aren't into stamps. I took these photos on December 12, 2022.

826 North Venice Avenue: Wildlife

David Aber took these photos of a mailbox covered with desert scenes on September 9th, 2022:

As usual, I don't know how he finds amazing mailboxes like this one!