As long as there have been bikes, there have been bicycle messengers - especially since the safety bicycle came about in the late 1880s. What I'm hoping to gradually assemble here is a collection of images and snippets from the history of bike messengers - just whatever I can find, mostly from my own collection for now, but if anyone out there has more images or text to share, please let me know. I was originally going to organize this page in a time line fashion, but then it occured to me that itwill likely flow better if it's broken down into individual subsections, so that's how it is now. Anything concerning transport of packages via bicycle, whether it be messengers as we know them today, load-carrying bicycles, postal workers, telegraph messengers - I'm interested in all of it - from items concerning messengers themselves to items simply featuring the image of a messenger. Unless indicated otherwise, all items or images are from my personal collection. That being said, into the past we go...
Championnat des Triporteurs - French cargo tricycle racing in the 20s and 30s
Critérium des Porteurs de Journaux - French newspaper courier racing in the 20s and 30s
The Fresno and San Francisco Bicycle Mail Route Of 1894
The Washington DC - Denver Bicycle Relay of 1894
Telegraph messengers
A small history of Load-carrying bicycles
A short history of the modern messenger bag
Other tidbits of messenger history
Bicycle mail stamps from around the world