The 2025 Calendar of Post Offices and Places

This ninth edition of the Postlandia Calendar of Post Offices and Places is dedicated to my father, long-time science teacher Robert Kalish, who passed away in January. As of the time of this writing his 78th birthday would have been tomorrow. Dad started collecting postmarks in 1960 and visited a decent nunber of post offices himself. Here's a slide of him in front of the (long-since-discontinued) post office in Wymer, West Virginia in 1966.



The direct link to order the calendar is here.
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2025 Postlandia Calendar Cover:


With this year's calendar we've now featured over 100 post offices, spanning all 50 states (as well as Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands). I think of each month's photo and caption like a condensed blog post. So while I don't write on here anymore, I still get to research and write about a decent number of postal operations each year. I have to admit, I was close to not dedicating the effort this year. It's hard work, and November is not kind to my body in general (I'm looking at you, Daylight Saving Time). But here we are, I'm glad we're back, and let's keep going, shall we?

As always, do note that the photos in the calendar are high-resolution, unlike the compressed versions I post here.

This year's efforts included a) actually visiting a couple of the sites in question; b) contacting a post office and a nonprofit; and c) reviewing more than two dozen historic newspaper stories as well as blog posts and other websites to check fun postal facts.

California King


Every calendar is printed to order. My publisher of choice is Lulu. They've proven reliable for as long as I've been making these calendars, and you should find that the printing and paper quality are top-notch. You can write on them with pen or even Sharpie and the pages hold up just fine.

In addition to the holidays you'll find on other calendars, you'll find historic tidbits and postal trivia. I'm pretty sure this is the only calendar that notes under July 26 the 1775 appointment of Benjamin Franklin as our first Postmaster General.

To B. Frank(lin) With You:


Sales of these calendars help support my continued post office explorations, which this year have included trips to the heartland, southern California, and a dozen post offices on islands in New England. Proceeds also support the time I continue to dedicate expanding the Post Mark Collectors Club (PMCC)'s Online Post Office Photo Collection, the freely available reference that recently surpassed 34,000 post office photos!

Baskett Case


Again, the link to order the 2025 Postlandia calendar directly from our publisher, Lulu, is here.

Thank you for your continued support!

Sincerely,
Evan (Postlandia)

2023 Postal Summary

Whoops! It's not the first time a year-end postal summary has come out a little late. Alas.

When you've been at this a long time it can become difficult to encounter low-lying postal fruit. Why, I finished visiting most if not all of the post offices [near me] in New York City, Long Island, north Jersey, and Connecticut a decade ago. Getting to new post offices requires effort; sometimes days of it! This year I was able to visit 418 new post offices spanning eight states, for a total of 11,401 post offices. I also revisited several dozen post offices for updated postmarks and photographs, notably in Hawaii and Massachusetts.

My 11,000th post office was Cape May, New Jersey.



Two trips accounted for most of the postal exploration this year: a ten-day trip based out of Kansas City (MO/KS/NE), wherein I visited 201 new post offices, and a ten-day, 1,913-mile trip based out of Dallas-Fort Worth (TX/OK), which resulted in 159 new post offices visited.

The term post office for the purposes of this post should be interpreted broadly: it includes carrier-only facilities, freestanding mail processing facilities, and Contract Postal Units (CPUs). However, it does not include some other sites that I nonetheless documented, such as: the Fairlawn Detached Lockbox Unit, former Westboro Station (in operation from 1951 to 1968), and Material Distribution Center—and that's just Topeka, Kansas!

Former Westboro Station, Topeka, Kansas:

Scenes from 2023 postal explorations:

Hawi, Hawaii: This post office relocated next door since I last visited it in 2010


Wichita Falls, Texas main post office [interior]:


Marietta, Oklahoma: "Chicksaw Indian Family Making Pah Sho Fah," a New Deal mural by Solomon McCombs


Liberty, MO: Hy-Vee #1384 CPU

2022 by the Numbers

I visited as many as 38 post offices (33 of which were new to me) in one day this year, in northeast Kansas and southeast Nebraska. State by state—and territory by territory:

Kansas: 109 post offices
Focus/Foci: Northeast Kansas: Kansas City and suburbs through Topeka

Texas: 105 post offices
Wichita Falls; Dallas and suburbs, out to Tyler

Oklahoma: 54 post offices
Southern Oklahoma: Ardmore through Lawton

Nebraska: 48 post offices
Southeast Nebraska; Lincoln

New Jersey: 31 post offices
Southern N.J., including Cape May County

Hawaii: 26 post offices
56 total visits (just 26 new): the Big Island of Hawai'i, Kauai (all), Pearl Harbor

Massachusetts: 1 post office
14 total visits (Cape Ann), one new operation: Beverly Delivery Distribution Center

Counting Counties:
I visited 47 new counties in 2023, spanning the areas above.



Thank you for your continued support! Have a wonderful 2024.
Evan