Tale of the tee: Penna.
A woman bought our Hershey Sweet Spots Tee at one of our first Market on Chocolate appearances this summer in Hershey.
What drew her to the shirt were not the two color choices or the logo design for a fictitious baseball club, she said, but the abbreviation of Pennsylvania.
“I like that it says ‘Penna.’, “ she said.
That remark stuck with me as we plotted the development of another design that we could take with us to any show in Pennsylvania.
Hence, our new Penna. Tee, which pays homage to a common state abbreviation that fell out of favor in 1963. That’s when the U.S. Post Office, as it was known then, adopted two-letter state abbreviations without periods as part of its Zone Improvement Plan, or ZIP, Code.
As with most things in life, there is a distinct Pennsylvania connection to the ZIP Code, according to a 2013 report, “The Untold Story of the ZIP Code.”
It was Philadelphia postal inspector Robert Moon, in 1944, who called for a three-digit national coding system “necessary for the post office to keep up with mail volume after World War II.”
It took the better part of two decades, but U.S. Postmaster General Edward Day, intrigued with Moon’s concept, combined it with two-digit local-code numbers to create the five-digit ZIP Code.
If you have ever looked at old pieces of mail, it’s incredible how vague many of the addresses were, and a marvel that the post office knew where to deliver.
I searched for “hershey, pa., postcards” on eBay. The first one featured Milton S. Hershey’s homestead. It was postmarked July 29, 1910, and addressed simply to “Dillsburg, York County.” No street address and 53 years too early for a ZIP Code.
Yet as this chart shows, the post office used a version of “Pa.” going back to 1831. Indeed, one of my eBay hits showed a postcard from 1928 addressed to a recipient in “Lancaster, Pa.”
State abbreviations since the advent of the ZIP Code are represented by two capital letters without punctuation. (The Associated Press, in its guidelines to journalists, abbreviates Pennsylvania as “Pa.” after a city name.)
Penn’s Woods
Of course, “Penna.” is a truer representation of our state’s origin: named for an English admiral and politician, Sir William Penn, whose son, also named William, founded the colonial Province of Penn.
The son suggested naming the colony “Sylvania,” which means “woods or forest” in Latin. A body called the Privy Council added the prefix “Penn” to honor the elder Penn.
Pennsylvania, therefore, means “Penn’s woods.”
I’m fine with PA if it helps with the flow of mail: all Stay packages are shipped via the U.S. Postal Service. Getting them to their destinations quickly is a hallmark of our brand, in no small measure thanks to the hard work of the men and women at the postal service.
But I prefer the elegance of “Penna.” when it comes to design. Apparently, so does the “Penna Turnpike” if it’s keystone-shaped logo is an indication.
So to our growing family of Pennsylvania-themed tees — Pennsylvania Craft Beer, Ben’s Bolt, Pennsylvania Bigfoot Believers, Pennsylvania Dutch — we happily add our new Penna. Tee.
We’ll have it with us wherever we go in Penn’s Woods.