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
