by Kelly Mayhew

Looking for an object to photograph for our popular social media posts “What Is It Wednesday”, I grabbed an old rubber stamp and set about figuring out where it came from. The bottom rubber says ‘W. Des Moines 50179’. Now, I know this is not a current zip code for West Des Moines, and it also didn’t seem to follow the structure of zip codes since I know that WDM’s current zip starts with 502 and Des Moines starts with 503. I am aware of Johnston having the 501 so thought a quick Google search would tell me where around Des Moines that post office might have been.

I was wrong.

Google’s ‘helpful’ AI summary at the top of the page told me that 50179 was for the city of Mitchellville, IA. But right below that a website called Zip Data Maps says, “50179 is not a zip code currently assigned to a geography. Were you looking for these other similar zip codes?”

So, I thought what if I ask about the history of zip code 50179 surely that will give me a clear answer why the city on this stamp says ‘W. Des Moines’.

NOPE. The next response told me that “The history of ZIP code 50179 is the history of the city of Hartford, Iowa, as it is the sole community served by this code.” With the first article under that summary being from Wikipedia for the community of Battle Creek, Nebraska! What in the AI nonsense is happening?

I then tried one more time to ask if Des Moines ever had a post office in the western part of the city using the code 50179 and got this answer instead. “No, 50179 is not a Des Moines ZIP code; 50179 is the ZIP code for Runnells, IA, a separate city located southeast of Des Moines. Des Moines uses a wide range of ZIP codes from the 50300s and 50900s, not 50100s.”

And when I go to a page I know will tell me if the zip code belongs to a city currently, USPS.com, they tell me that I have entered an invalid zip code.

So, I am at a dead end. Or am I?

I know that newspapers have a wealth of information in them and I know to look on library websites to see original documents and papers that I can see for myself. But this kind of knowledge is because I grew up in the analog age. Card catalogs at the library, huge sets of encyclopedias and a healthy dose of Gen-X cynicism of these new-fangled apps.

I know my children are told to look at certain websites and not to trust the search engines powered by AI when they are doing their homework. But we all know that the general public doing “their own research” are not going to be as diligent as they are setting about figuring out the truth in this age where everything in the world seems to be at our fingertips. Do I have answers for how we address this overload of mis-information and how we educate the public that true historic research involves going to a library, searching through card catalogs, and old books, newspapers, and ephemera that might be hard to access?

Don’t get me wrong, historical information is on the internet. But it doesn’t just appear there suddenly. It takes librarians and curators scanning and interpreting the information in the old stacks of newspapers, magazines, books, pictures, and objects. A real person to look and see, could this have just been a mistake? Could this old rubber stamp, that by the way, has zero ink staining on it, have been created and never used because it was the wrong number? Humans make errors, but looking up information on the internet, I have to remember AI is no better.