(As always, my prior summaries can be found at these links: 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018. Starting next year I'm just gonna link to this page with entries tagged "annual postal summary," heh. Let's go!)
2019 was an exciting year. I visited a decent 708 new, active postal operations this year across 18 states (in addition to re-visiting classics in New York). After correcting for a handful of errors in my spreadsheet, my grand total is now 9,994 post offices.
This year's travels included three major trips:
1. Puerto Rico / the U.S. Virgin Islands (17 days, all 144 post offices)
2. Ohio Valley / South (21 days, 351 new POs)
3. Delmarva Peninsula / eastern Virginia (13 days, 213 new POs)
Here I am at the San Antonio, Puerto Rico post office—my last in the territory, 11 days after my first. I'm holding a big, paper AAA map with every post office in Puerto circled (and highlighted, once I visited them); my finger is pointing to the San Antonio post office in the upper left corner:
Me at the Frederiksted, V.I. post office—my last in the territory, at the end of two days visiting its three main islands:
I was fortunate to be able to attend the First Day ceremony of the Post Office Murals stamps in Piggott, Arkansas on April 10, stopping at a forum: Postal Places, at Carnegie Mellon University on April 26, an event with an impressive roster of guests from postal circles. Sadly I can't find a link to the four amazing grad student-developed projects online, but here is a link to the course online.
During my trip to Delmarva [Delaware / Maryland / Virginia] I took a couple of side trips into Chesapeake Bay to visit the two post offices at Smith Island, Maryland, as well as the post office in Tangier Island, Virginia. Here I am at the latter:
Thank you to the dozens of people who purchased the 2020 Postlandia calendar! 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.
I had some fun mailing packages in 2019...
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:
Cataño, Puerto Rico Detached Mail Delivery Unit
Virginia Beach, Virginia: McDonald Garden Center CPU
North Little Rock, Arkansas (former site, now library)
Paducah, Kentucky Carrier Annex
I continued documenting the U.S. Postal Service's New Deal treasures as well, for example:
Eutaw, Alabama: "The Countryside," by Robert Gwathmey (1941)
2019 By the Numbers
I visited as many as 34 post offices (of which 31 were new) in one day this year (in the Delmarva Peninsula portion of Virginia). State by state—and territory by territory:Puerto Rico: 132 post offices
Focus/Foci: [All post offices in the territory]
Virginia: 118 post offices
Eastern counties of the Delmarva Peninsula; Hampton Roads; Richmond
Arkansas: 79 post offices
Northeast corner; Little Rock south to El Dorado
Louisiana: 70 post offices
North central Louisiana; Alexandria
Maryland: 58 post offices
Eastern Shore
Kentucky: 47 post offices
Ohio River Valley (western counties); Berea
Delaware: 34 post offices
North of Wilmington; eastern shore; Sussex County
Missouri: 32 post offices
Southeastern corner
Alabama: 27 post offices
Birmingham; northeast corner
Pennsylvania: 21 post offices
North of Pittsburgh
Tennessee: 19 post offices
Chattanooga; Cleveland; Jellico
Mississippi: 17 post offices
East of Jackson to Meridian
Indiana: 12 post offices
Evansville, to wit:
U.S. Virgin Islands: 12 post offices
[All post offices in the territory]
West Virginia: 12 post offices
Huntington; Charleston north
Massachusetts: 7 post offices
South of Quabbin Reservoir
Ohio: 5 post offices
Random Akron to Columbus; Marietta north
Georgia: 3 post offices
Dade County (NW corner)
Illinois: 2 post offices
Brookport; Cairo
North Carolina: 1 post offices
Knotts Island
This year I finished visiting every post office in Delaware, even getting to visit the post office at Dover Air Force Base. The impetus for the trip was the 58th annual Post Mark Collectors Club (PMCC) Convention, which took place in Dover, Delaware back in late September.
The "kids' table," PMCC convention:
Me at Talleyville Branch, Wilmington, DE, my final post office in the First State:
Counting Counties:
I visited 100 new counties in 2019. They are the dark blue counties east of Texas and south of New York 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 2020.
