Last Day: Elmhurst, PA

Welcome to Part 2 of Going Postal's eastern PA experiences, as they happen. Today I visited 23 active post offices as well as several former sites. (More about those in another post.) Among the offices I visited was Elmhurst, PA, which experienced its last day. Meaning, it is now closed. Technically the office is temporarily suspended, but such offices rarely re-open in practice.

The town is approximately five linear miles southeast of downtown Scranton, but it is on the other side of a ridge and utterly rural.

Here's a cartographic summary of the situation (i.e., a map):


The office was already in the process of being cleaned out when I arrived at about 10:30. I was able to obtain last-day cancels, and even the former Postmaster, Lois Smith, stopped in to say hello. She was nice enough to record a little interview with me outside the office. The Last Postmaster, Addie, is now reassigned to a different Scranton-area office.

Mail delivery in Elmhurst is already taken care of by the nearby Moscow, PA post office, 2.5 miles down the road. Elmhurst box holders are being moved to the Moscow post office, wherein their numbers will be reassigned (though mail addressed to the Elmhurst box numbers will still get through).

The Elmhurst office was effectively in someone's basement. Here is a photo of the building:



Here's a (well-protected) sign in the window: