In keeping with the
2010 and
2011 Going Postal tradition of tabulating postal experiences for the year, let's see what 2012 had to offer:
This year I visited an insane 2,097 [new-to-me, active] post offices across 31 states and the District of Columbia -- or about 5.7 per day. The highlight of the year was my 102-day, 17,600-mile, 1,406-post office road trip that spanned July to October. If you'd like a general sense of where I've been, you can see my counties visited map -- counties first visited in 2012 are colored yellow:
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpmM8l_AiPFbttRVzYNpRZQ2mmD54SerOx0aGmoL5FZQdVVegkFxoOg16thv0s26fBzFP94Fz8cDHNCaOxNG7QNrODSOCxurQuLE5Urbhs5eUJFohAANalU0YXHRjOOxroplnVhqx6puVr/s640/MyCountyMapEnd2012.gif)
That statistic does not include well more than 150 discontinued post offices / contract locations, nor previous sites for post offices, such as WPA offices that have been sold by USPS and consolidated into other facilities. This year I made special efforts to find those locations, photos of many of which have been presented to you on this blog. For example...
Below: Denton, Texas's former early-century post office lies across the street from its present site:
![Old Denton, TX post office](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglcLZW4mFON10nf83USpTN_ySZMs4jiPlxx7TJqZWNf24hqOBCce5VSGDCuKPA5iNYgMoOzah4vQaOPqWCSKgnNl5DbteXM9I9zYsopjDPxzVu6Boewv-AkBw8zXCHw-4UZ9vIE_qKr5iF/s640/067.JPG)
Below: Cleveland's Brook Park Branch post office was discontinued as part of the 2009-2011 SBOC initiative. Photographed in October, the building is now home to The Post Office Café.
![Cleveland, Ohio: discontinued Brook Park Branch post office](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3zbc9RrQKmgYwoQF8zWLzlEAXSvkurYqkMCZsxAXJtmNpMgFNnaJSOvcyrqsvGx6CNbyCC8iZKfXaxbabc-tuqoyGLutKNasvZM-wRe5s6c069fiz0VKKVV9hUPw2QND-GBQ4Gfo_QMM6/s640/DSC08938.JPG)
I also made special efforts to visit freestanding processing facilities, like the Seattle P&DC (which is way too big for one photo), partly seen here:
![Seattle Processing and Distribution Center (P&DC) view](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNATSiqpQFLt-rTfPAv5bHm1yhHjZjmzEGnUa_Z9GN1P6vg-tNlDr57N6xBTkVT-_cp-ADOjJXnv_nbj86o364f5zeq6HXu9M6paDJ5T6TDP_hyphenhyphen4B71Scc8UwOUVKty7gTsu5DzY09yc8J/s640/071.JPG)
State by state, counting only distinct active postal locations:
Pennsylvania: 268 post offices
Focus/Foci: Northern Philadelphia Metro area; east-central PA.
Texas: 231.5*
Dallas-Fort Worth metro area; Austin; El Paso; Big Bend National Park
* Texarkana's Downtown Station lies square on the Texas/Arkansas border.
New Jersey: 212
West-central New Jersey and central coast
California: 167
Los Angeles and the Central Valley (e.g. Bakersfield, Merced, Sacramento)
Washington: 115
Olympia, Tacoma, central Washington (e.g. Yakima), Columbia River Gorge, Tri-Cities
Arkansas: 108.5*
Northeast (e.g. Jonesboro), northwest (Fayetteville), southwestern I-30 corridor
Oregon: 99
South central (Crater Lake), Eugene, Portland, Columbia River Gorge
Virginia: 92
Suburban D.C. (Arlington and Alexandria), I-81 corridor
North Carolina: 89
Western: Winston-Salem, Hickory, Asheville, mountains
South Dakota: 72
Central east-west corridor; Rapid City, Pierre, all of Sioux Falls
New York: 68
Southern tier; Ithaca, Binghamton
Minnesota: 67
Southwest Minnesota (New Ulm, Mankato) and Twin Cities
Nevada: 57
Las Vegas metro area. All of it.
New Hampshire: 57
Southern N.H.
Oklahoma: 57
Tulsa metro area
Montana: 43
Missoula, Helena, Billings
Arizona: 39
Tucson
Tennessee: 57
Knoxville, Cookeville, Murfreesboro
Ohio: 37
Cleveland suburbs
Vermont: 35
Connecticut River valley
New Mexico: 30
Southwestern; Las Cruces, Alamogordo
Missouri: 28
Branson area for PMCC Convention
Iowa: 25
Iowa City
Louisiana: 13
Shreveport / Bossier City
West Virginia: 12
Maryland: 11
Massachusetts: 10
Idaho: 8
District of Columbia: 7
Illinois: 7
Indiana: 2
Wyoming: 2
2012 also noted the following threshold post office visits:
#3,000: Riverside, NJ: Delanco Branch
#3,500: Timberville, VA
#4,000: Killeen, Texas: Harker Heights Branch
#4,500: Bingen, Washington
![Bingen, WA post office](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA58mznXZtZk-NNe6z11uu7Fj2gA5EmZgXvumDgqilsbnk3ewjARfBa8y_0YWlqgsyh4LgObe5n9vjfi6P6m4lMkH7_wBKm07nKlgxnJEFyOgyCN16g1ULpY0haFBaAfh_WkmTLs9Oymlg/s640/377.JPG)
Hope everyone has a great 2013!