This collection includes material documenting the thirty-one year career of Joseph Newton Sparks with the Railway Mail Service.

Joseph Newton Sparks was born on July 19, 1894 in Granville, Missouri. He graduated from the Keyser Preparatory School in Keyser, West Virginia and then spent several years as a farmer in Springfield, West Virginia. In 1921, he went to work in the Kelly-Springfield Tire Company in Cumberland, Maryland. He entered the Railway Mail Service on October 22, 1928 as a substitute Railway Postal Clerk in Baltimore, Maryland, became a clerk in 1936, was appointed Assistant Superintendent in April 1947 of the Postal Transportation Service (formerly the Railway Mail Service) and in November 1947 became District Superintendent and District Transportation Manager on the lines of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad between Jersey City, New Jersey and Washington, D.C. and between Washington and Grafton, West Virginia and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. When District offices were discontinued in 1958, he became a Field Services Officer in the Baltimore area. Joseph Sparks retired on November 30, 1959 after 31 years with the U.S. Post Office Department. On February 9, 1933, he married Margaret Catherine Arnold in Maryland. The Sparks had a son, Joseph F. and two daughters, Mary L. and Margaret J.

1 half-box

Copyright has not been assigned to the California State Railroad Museum. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Capital District Collections Manager. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the CSRM as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the reader.

This collection is open for research at our off-site storage facility with one week's notice. Contact Library & Archives staff to arrange for access.