(As always, my prior summaries can be found at these links: 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017. Let's go!)
2018 was a comparatively modest year. I visited a hearty 565 new, active postal operations this year, my lowest new count since 2015. My grand total is now 9,287 post offices.
This year's travels included two sizable voyages out west: a weeklong jaunt beginning and ending in Albuquerque, a 2,400-mile round trip that netted 114 post offices across five states. A two-week adventure began in Phoenix and culminated at LAX, and resulted in 157 new post offices. I dedicated nearly a full day of that trip to visiting just one new office: North Rim, Arizona. (Fun fact, I was its first customer of the year!)
Thank you to the dozens of people who purchased the 2019 Postlandia calendar, and/or postcards! Your support is always greatly appreciated. This has always been a passion project, and I don't get paid a dime to do any of this.
Postlandia also has a popular, growing Instagram feed. Check it out!
As always, the counts in this post include active 'standard' post offices, Contract Postal Units (CPUs), carrier annexes, and mail processing plants. They do not include former sites (e.g. historic post office buildings), places I've previously been to but revisited (say, to take a better photo), or previously discontinued operations. Here are some assorted photos from various operations I've visited this year:
Middlsex-Essex Processing and Distribution Center (P&DC), North Reading, Mass.
Liberal, Kansas former post office—a New Deal beaut!
Easton, PA: Lafayette College CPU
Yeso, NM former post office
I continued documenting the U.S. Postal Service's New Deal treasures as well, for example:
Northampton, PA: "Physical Changes of the Postman through the Ages", a cast stone relief by Maurice Glickman, 1939
2018 By the Numbers
I visited as many as 35 post offices in one day this year (in southern California), and post offices in as many as five states (specifically, KS, OK, CO, TX, and NM) in one day. State by state:New York: 117 post offices
Focus/Foci: Western Hudson Valley, the Catskills
Pennsylvania: 83 post offices
Northeast corner
Arizona: 83 post offices
Eastern Phoenix area, I-40 from Kingman to Winslow, the Grand Canyon, and Flagstaff to Page
California: 50 post offices
I-15 from Baker to San Bernardino, San Bernardino Mountains, Route 91 around Anaheim
Massachusetts: 44 post offices
Western Worcester County; Salem/Beverly; Reading
Texas: 42 post offices
Western half of the northern panhandle, incl. Amarillo
New Mexico: 35 post offices
Northeast New Mexico: Clovis to Clayton
Utah: 25 post offices
Southern Utah: St. George area to Big Water
Kansas: 24 post offices
Southwest corner
New Hampshire: 24 post offices
Southeast New Hampshire
Maine: 16 post offices
Southwest Maine; Portsmouth Naval Shipyard
Oklahoma: 12 post offices
Western panhandle
Nevada: 11 post offices
I-15 corridor, excluding Las Vegas; new Vegas CPUs
New Jersey: 11 post offices
Northwest Bergen County
Rhode Island: 2 post offices
Naval Station Newport
Colorado: 1 post office
Campo
Here's the Campo, Colorado post office (southeastern-most in Colorado):
Milestones
9,000th post office: Wittmann, Arizona
Last year I finished visiting all publicly accessible post offices in Rhode Island...
Actually completing Rhode Island:
Last year WNPR's Colin McEnroe Show (listen to the full episode here) invited me to speak about some post offices across Connecticut and the U.S., and I mentioned for the sake of accuracy that I'd visited all *publicly accessible* post offices in Connecticut, although I had not been able to visit the operation located on the Naval Submarine Base New London, in Groton. Thanks to a very generous listener, and U.S. Navy officers and officials at base, not only was I able to complete my Connecticut postal collection, but this year I got to visit the Naval Station post office of Newport, Rhode Island (the one P.O. in the Ocean State I had not been able to visit), as well as the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard post office in Kittery, Maine! Thank you all!!!
Here I am at the Naval Station Newport post office:
Special thanks to Navalog (the base's magazine) for highlighting my visit in its April 19 issue, and for "A Time and a Place" magazine from the Catskills for featuring my travels in their December 2018 edition!
Navalog:
A Time and a Place:
Counting Counties:
I visited 43 new counties in 2018. They are shown in dark blue on this travel map:
Dear readers, thank you for your continued support! I'm hoping to share many more new post office stories and photos with you in 2019.
