As rural as it sounds

I was the second customer of the day at the Recluse, Wyoming post office.

Time: 2:00 P.M.

The circuitous route from Gillette to Sheridan had been paying off in wonderful scenery and non-inhabitation. This was the first of a few tiny towns along the way. Here's a map of the area (with which you can fiddle to your heart's content!):


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At a distance of 22.5 miles Arvada, population 33, is the closest town. (Though Gillette, a city of 20,000, lies just 36 miles to the south.) Recluse? Well, see for yourself!

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The community bulletin board.

The post office and the school serve ranchers for miles around, of course. The Wyoming Tourism website even reports that the town was so named due to "the distances between area ranches and the post office"!

I visited several obscure, though friendly, offices that day. The tiniest was Leiter, Wyoming -- the 'town' essentially consisted of one long building at a crossroads, and the post office is only open from 8 to noon. I had to mail back for its postmark later.

Here are the post offices of three more towns I visited that afternoon:

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Arvada, Wyoming. Another relatively new building.

Photos from September 2008.