Supai, Arizona: The Village With No Road Where Mail Comes by Mule

At the bottom of Havasu Canyon, a side canyon of the Grand Canyon, is a village with no road leading to it. Supai is the capital of the Havasupai Indian Reservation and home of the Havasupai people, whose name means "people of the blue-green water," for the turquoise creek that runs through their canyon. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has called it the most remote community in the contiguous United States. There are no cars in Supai. The nearest road ends at Hualapai Hilltop, on the canyon rim, and from there the only ways down are a steep 8-mile trail, on foot or by mule, or a helicopter. That isolation shapes everything about daily life, including the mail. Supai is the only place in the United States where the Postal Service still carries mail in and out by mule. A contract carrier picks up the mail at Peach Springs, Arizona, and trucks it about 60 miles across remote reservation roads to the trailhead. There it's loaded onto pack mules for the trip down. Most of what arrives isn't letters. Families order groceries, medicine and household goods by mail, and the Peach Springs post office even has a walk-in freezer to hold perishable food waiting to go down to Supai. The mule trains make the trip six days a week. The saddle once used by the lead rider was retired in 2015 and is now in the Smithsonian's National Postal Museum. Mail sent out from Supai carries a special postmark noting that it traveled by mule, which has made the tiny post office a favorite stop for visitors. Those visitors mostly come for the water. Downstream from the village, Havasu Creek drops over a series of turquoise waterfalls, including Havasu Falls and Mooney Falls. The Havasupai Tribe manages tourism carefully, with limited permits, required overnight stays, and no day hiking, and the permits typically sell out fast. About 200 people live in Supai. The 2010 census counted 208, and the 2020 census counted zero, an error that shows how easily a community without a road can be overlooked. The mule trains still make the trip into the canyon.