The Gravity-Defying Mail Jumpers of Lake Geneva - Yes, sometimes they fall in the drink.

THE TEENAGER STRADDLES THE WINDOW’S edge, calculating the distance to the dock. Dressed in a casual uniform of blue shorts and a red polo shirt, he is poised and athletic, his hand gripping a newspaper with mail nestled inside. The double-decker boat—large enough to seat 160 passengers—slows as it navigates toward the pier, but it never stops. The teenager rises and leaps from the window, right foot landing on the dock, then it’s a mad dash to the mailbox, a pivot, and another leap, left foot landing on the runner of the moving boat. The crowd cheers and the teen smiles and returns to the front, preparing for the next jump as the Walworth II delivers the U.S. mail to the waterfront residents of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

The town is the first and only one in the United States where jumpers deliver mail from a passenger-carrying mailboat, a tradition that began in 1916 when the primitive roads were too difficult to traverse. It has continued uninterrupted, May through September, for the last 105 years.

Little about the mailboat jumping tradition has changed in the past 100-plus years, with one exception: the inclusion of women. Elaine Kanelos, author of the self-published book Mail Jumper!, jumped for two years starting in 1974, breaking a 60-year tradition of all-male jumpers. “I had grown up on Lake Geneva and we always got our mail by boat,” she said. “I remember being six years old, out playing and swimming, and forever looking for the mailboat. It was such a unique and special part of life.”


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