The Mail Recovery Center (MRC) in Atlanta is the U.S. Postal Service ^®'s official “lost and found” department. Formerly the “Dead Letter Office,” the MRC has had several consolidations that have centralized the operation from four centers into one.

What Happens to dead letters?

Known at one time as the Dead Letter Office, the Mail Recovery Center works to reunite undeliverable packages and letters with either sender or recipient. ... If items can't be delivered or returned, the Postal Service donates, recycles, discards, or auctions them off.

What is a dead letter office?

They're called dead letters: missives that can't be delivered to their intended recipient or returned to sender, usually because there's no return address. The USPS officially opened a dead letter office in 1825, but the idea of having one is older than the national postal service itself.