2024 Postal Summary

Welcome to yet another slightly late retrospective of postal travels. Turns out this is the 15th annual year-end postal tabulation post! Holy cow, how time flies. This year I visited 489 new post offices (and photographed 623 in all). My current grand total is 11,890 post offices across the U.S.

It's actually getting a little tricky to catalogue these travels, because even when I'm not visiting new post offices I often end up revisiting P.O.s I've been to previously and just taking new photographs. Oftentimes there are changes to the appearance of the facility (new signage, new siding, a new paint job, etc.), or an outright change in location, that result in a new image being added to the Post Mark Collectors Club (PMCC)'s Online Post Office Photo Collection. On several outings this year I ended up blending new post office visits with revisits. Thus I actually keep TWO counts: new post offices visited and total visited (including revisits). Revisits do NOT count toward my total counts of P.O.s visited. Whenever I give counts without specification it refers to new visits.

As always I continue to amass stories from wonderful places around the country, yet finding myself lacking the energy to write blog entries about them. My continued apologies for those who have followed this blog for a long time that it is a shell of its former self in that regard. The calendar has effectively absorbed my research and writing energies these past few years (I think of it as writing 12 mini-blog entries a year).

Back to business! I was able to take multiple, generally smaller trips in 2024, though three yielded considerable postal visits: a weeklong trip again beginning and ending in Kansas City (MO/KS/IA), wherein I visited 136 new post offices, and a weeklong, trip beginning and ending in Ontario, California (which in my case enabled a cheaper airfare and car rental than from LAX), which resulted in 123 new post offices visited (142 overall). The highlight of that trip was an afternoon at Sony Pictures Studios for the First Day ceremony of the release of the Alex Trebek stamp, featuring, among others, current Jeopardy! host Ken Jennings.

Jean Trebek speaking at the Alex Trebek First Day stamp ceremony, Culver City, CA:


A trip to volunteer for several days at the Post Mark Collectors Club (PMCC)'s National Postmark Museum Work Week led to my being able to fill in several gaps in my postal visits map for northeastern Ohio and northwestern Pennsylvania. I visited 171 total post offices on that trip, 116 of which were new.

Photo from re-visit of Fairmount City, PA post office (see how it looked, when it had a bit more character, in 2001 or 2011):


The Post Mark Collectors Club (PMCC)'s annual convention was held in York, Pennsylvania in August, and I photographed 58 post offices at that time (48 of which were new). Here's just a random scene from the event.



Visiting the American Philatelic Society's 2024 Great American Stamp Show in Hartford, Connecticut enabled me to sell a part of my father's stamp collection, and 12 new post office photos (though no actual new post office visits).



In September I fulfilled a longtime mission of visiting the Community Post Office (CPO) at the top of Mount Washington (see below), by way of the unique and historic Cog Railway. My lovely and patient wife put up with this as well as visits to 27 total post offices (21 new) as we both visited Acadia National Park and even a couple of post offices on nearby islands.



Late this spring I took two days to visit Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard (4 post offices and 6 P.O.s, respectively). In each instance I flew out in the morning, rented a car for a few hours, enjoyed the islands, and returned in the afternoon. (It was faster and honestly, less expensive than driving up, lodging and taking the ferries out.) I'd been to Nantucket as a child but never Martha's Vineyard / Dukes County.

Martha's Vineyard: Chilmark, Massachusetts—a.k.a. finally, I've been to every county in New England!



Finally, a unique trip to experience the April 8 eclipse took us across the border, where we experienced unbridled, glorious totality near the town in Magog, in the Eastern Townships region of southern Quebec, Canada. That trip included 49 postal visits (35 new), including six in Quebec. [Note: I do NOT include Canadian post office visits in my total visit count.]

Post Office at Pharmacie Jean Coutu #133, Magog, QC:


As always, he 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).

By the Numbers

I visited as many as 35 post offices (32 of which were new to me) in one day in 2024, in northeast Ohio. State by state—and territory by territory:

Missouri: 128 new post offices (+4 re-visits)
Focus/Foci:Kansas City suburbs, Columbia, St. Joseph, NW corner

High Point, Missouri Community Post Office (CPO)—
Interior with operator Martha Foxworthy in March 2024, a couple of months prior to discontinuance:


California: 123 post offices (+19 re-visits)
Los Angeles, Long Beach, San Gabriel Valley

Pennsylvania: 82 post offices (+33 re-visits)
South central: York to Reading; Franklin area; rural western PA

Ohio: 79 post offices (+32 re-visits)
Northeast Ohio: Cleveland suburbs, Akron, Canton area

Vermont: 24 post offices (+5 re-visits)
Eastern and northern VT

New Hampshire: 12 post offices (+3 re-visits)
Northwestern NH

Massachusetts: 10 post offices (+3 re-visits)
Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard

Iowa: 6 post offices (+1 re-visit)
Southwest corner

Maryland: 3 post offices
Northern Harford County

Kansas: 2 post offices
Elwood and Wathena

Connecticut: 12 re-visits
[Various post offices with new locations or signage]

New York: 12 re-visits
Long Island

(Why revisit post offices on Long Island? Well, here's one reason. Here's me in front of the 1942 mural "Outdoor Sports," at the Westhampton Beach, NY post office. When I visited in 2010 USPS personnel there told me it was illegal to photograph it and basically read me the Riot Act. A local even told me it was illegal to photograph the building outside. All a load of crap. So I finally went back and took the photo when no one was around to tell me that I couldn't. A larger image, plus a close-up of the artist's signature, can be found here.)



Quebec: 6 Canadian post offices
Magog, Sherbrooke

New Jersey: 1 re-visit
Perth Amboy

Counting Counties:
I visited 20 new counties in 2024: Dukes County, MA (Martha's Vineyard) and 19 counties in central to northwestern Missouri

I'm glad folks continue to read this blog (and support it financially with the purchase of the Postlandia Calendar of Post Offices and Places)! Have a wonderful 2025.
Evan

A Stamp Issue to Make FDR Proud

A drizzle couldn't dampen the mood at the historic Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, New York last Tuesday as a crowd of 175 gathered to celebrate the issuance of ten WPA Poster-themed Forever postage stamps. Speakers at the First-Day stamp ceremony included Library and Museum director Paul Sparrow; Megan Brennan, Postmaster General; Anthony Musso, FDR author and historian; and David Roosevelt, grandson of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.


Postmaster General Megan Brennan speaking at WPA Posters stamp First-Day ceremony.

The series of ten stamps was made available for sale nationwide in a booklet-of-20 format beginning on March 7. The Works Progress Administration (later Work Projects Administration—each WPA) was perhaps the capstone of Franklin D. Roosevelt's ambitious New Deal, a set of programs which impacted all corners of the American social and geographic landscape as part of a massive effort to combat the effects of the Great Depression. The WPA operated between 1935 and 1943, and is best known for the staggering array of physical infrastructure development projects it undertook: more than 1,000 airports were developed; 24,000 miles of sidewalks, and sewers were installed; 40,000 public buildings were constructed, including schools, libraries, and hospitals; thousands of parks were developed; and hundreds of thousands of miles of roads built or improved with WPA labor. The list goes on. 8.5 million unemployed Americans were put to work as part of WPA projects that benefited the public good.

In addition to manual laborers the WPA put thousands of white-collar workers to work. Women were employed as seamstresses (creating and repairing 382 million articles of clothing), nurses, and school cafeteria workers (serving 1.2 billion school lunches). The new WPA Posters stamp issue celebrates a lesser recognized accomplishment of the WPA: poster artwork produced by a division of an arts program, which was known as Federal Project No. 1. As part of "Federal One" WPA artists created murals and sculptures for public buildings; musicians played in Federal Music Project orchestras; and thespians performed in Federal Theatre Project plays. WPA artists also created posters that were displayed in public places. These posters encouraged exploration of America's landmarks and natural treasures, "education, health, conservation and other civic ideals" (USPS). Two million posters of approximately 35,000 designs were produced. Ten of these designs are commemorated with the new WPA Posters stamp issue.


Left to right: Paul Sparrow, Megan Brennan, David Roosevelt, and Anthony Musso.

"These stamps commemorate the work of my grandfather's most ambitious New Deal program and the artwork generated from the WPA artists," declared David B. Roosevelt, grandson of Franklin and Eleanor.

Postmaster General Megan Brennan dedicated the stamps at the ceremony, lauding the "simple, effective, and striking" style of the artwork created as part of the WPA's poster program. FDR, an avid stamp collector, "understood the power of visual design" and the WPA's artwork was "bold and energizing." The designs featured on these stamps are "classic and enduring" images that continue to appeal today.

The Library of Congress maintains the largest collection of surviving WPA poster artwork. Digitized images can be viewed here.

It's only fitting that the stamps were inaugurated at Hyde Park in Dutchess County, explained Anthony Musso, author of FDR and the Post Office. Dutchess County is home to the five 'FDR Post Offices': Beacon, Wappingers Falls, Poughkeepsie, Hyde Park, and Rhinebeck. Each of the five distinctive post offices was constructed during FDR's presidency, and FDR himself had a hand in the design of each. Each was built with locally quarried stone and each possesses sizable or otherwise distinctive works of New Deal artwork inside. (Beacon, Hyde Park, and Rhinebeck house full lobby-wraparound murals; Wappingers Falls has two triangular murals painted directly on walnut wood, and Poughkeepsie's houses five large murals on two stories.) In each case the New Deal artwork displays aspect of the community's heritage. The art was created and installed in public buildings so to be accessible to all people. Four of the five post offices (all but Beacon) were designed after historic buildings in each community. Poughkeepsie's post office— the "Grand Palace"—was designed to emulate the former courthouse in the city in which New York became the 11th state to ratify the Constitution, in 1788. Collectively the five FDR post offices in Dutchess County are among the finest and most concentrated collection of New Deal post offices in the country.


The "Grand Palace" Poughkeepsie post office, recently completed, Dec. 1938.

[Note: I must correct a popular misconception that was repeated several times by the speakers at the stamp ceremony (and, alas, even by me in the past). New Deal post offices and their attendant artwork were not themselves products of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Rather, they were products of parallel but separate New Deal programs that were overseen by the federal Treasury Department. Post office building construction was overseen by the Public Buildings Branch (1933—1939) and Public Buildings Administration (within the Federal Works Agency, 1939+), with many facilities funded in conjunction with the Public Works Administration (PWA). Federal building artwork was commissioned by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts ("the Section", or SFA) and Treasury Relief Art Project (TRAP), not the WPA's Federal Art Project.]


David Roosevelt speaking at the WPA Posters stamp First-Day ceremony.

Franklin D. Roosevelt was an avid stamp aficionado. At its peak his collection of stamp numbered 1.2 million items. Collecting and studying stamps "helped save his life," declared Ms. Brennan. Philately was "like a Zen meditation for him," stated Mr. Musso. According to the National Postal Museum, "As a child, he looked to stamps for knowledge about the world. As a polio-stricken adult, they offered solace." David Roosevelt affirmed the value of philately: it "makes us better citizens and innumerable ways enriches our lives."

The Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum granted free admission to all attendees of the stamp ceremony. FDR's first stamp album was put on display at the museum for the first time.

One special guest at the ceremony was Jeremiah Brennan, Postmaster General Megan Brennan's father. He lived through the Depression and was an admirer of FDR. Mr. Brennan came from Pennsylvania to attend the event.

The Colors were presented by New York State Police Troop K. The National Anthem was sung by the First Ladies a cappella group from Franklin D. Roosevelt High School in Hyde Park. (Now Haviland Middle School, the former Franklin Delano Roosevelt High School building in Hyde Park was constructed as a New Deal project with Public Works Administration funds!)


First Ladies a capella group singing at the WPA Posters stamp First-Day ceremony.

In addition to stamp designer Maribel Gray, USPS personnel from Postal Headquarters, the Westchester District, and Hyde Park Post Office were on-hand. A first-day hand-cancellation and Hyde Park "bullet" dater were available for postmarking purposes.

Local coverage by the Poughkeepsie Journal and Hudson Valley Post.

First Day in Philly

For my first day in Philadelphia I unpacked, and then managed to visit 18 post offices after starting at 11 a.m. Here are two architectural notes of interest:

1. Glenolden, PA:

Look at the font. This has got to be '60s, because the signage was created after the advent of ZIP codes, and there was a sign in the building that still referred to the "Post Office Department" (so the latest it could be is '71). It's unbelievably garish, but fantastic all the same. It looks more at home on a car dealership than a post office, but it's the uniqueness of individual offices that makes USPS's infrastructure wonderful.

The main signage, closer up:


And have a closer look at the ZIP code. It's just too cool:

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2. Ridley Park, PA:


A good example of when chatting with clerks in a non-busy office yields neat information. The post office might not look too interesting, but back when the building was completed in 1976, the office was heralded for its use of solar panels. Here a clerk directed me to a photograph on the wall -- an aerial shot of the new post office, complete with six rows of solar panels, angled diagonally on the roof. This was told to me by Clerk #2, at the right window of the office.

According to Kaiman Lee's Encyclopedia of energy-efficient building design: 391 practical case studies, the solar panels provided 20% of the post office's heating and cooling energy needs. The 6,000-sq.-ft. building, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, not only featured 2,500 sq. ft. of solar panels on the roof, but utilized other energy-saving materials in its construction as well. These included "insulated porcelain metal panels" as well as insulated glass windows.

(The solar panels were removed ca. 1990.)

I got to talking with Clerk #1, at the left window, about First-Day Ceremonies, to which he said that he'd only been to one, and it was held at that very Ridley Park office. The year after the Ridley Park P.O. was completed, USPS chose to inaugurate its 13-cent Energy Development stamp at Ridley Park.

Here's a First-Day Cover featuring a silk cachet; it's an item currently being offered for sale on eBay for $1.25:

Going Postal Goes First-Day

The author has had the pleasure of attending two USPS First-Day stamp issuing ceremonies in the New York area during the past month.

Pioneers of American Industrial Design: June 29, 2011
Held at the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, near the Guggenheim in Manhattan, this elegant set of 12 stamps commemorates 12 giants of industrial design. The ceremony was attended by many relatives and descendants of the designers featured.

Here I am answering a call:


Afterward I finished up my visits to all the post offices of Manhattan south of 110th Street. My friend, a Linn's Stamp News editor, got his First-Day program covers cross-canceled at Macy's to validate that these were obtained in New York, and not in Kansas City.

U.S. Merchant Marine: July 28, 2011
This set of four Forever stamps was issued at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, New York. The Kings Point post office was discontinued in May 2009, but continues as a private mailroom. The Academy's mail is handled by the Great Neck post office. Still listed on USPS's Post Office Locator tool, the 'post office' for Kings Point is listed as being at Great Neck's Old Village Station. There is no Kings Point postmark available. The ceremony's First-Day cancel stated Great Neck, and the ceremony was run by New York's Triboro District -- even though it is, indeed, slightly beyond the geographic confines of New York City.

The audience was regaled by musical performances by the USMMA Regimental Band, which is composed solely of USMMA Midshipmen. Here are the Colors:



David Cochrane detailed a history of USMMA ships and their contributions to wartime supply and peacetime transportation efforts. A USMMA pin was presented to stamp artist Dennis Lyall by the Honorable David T. Matsuda.

Below: The unveiling of the stamps. Left to right, visible: James Cochrane, VP: Product Information, USPS; USMMA Midshipman, Captain Laurellee Kopras; the Honorable David T. Matsuda, U.S. Maritime Administration.



Below: Prof. Joshua M. Smith, Interim Director of the American Merchant Marine Museum [which I visited afterward; it is pretty interesting, and on the Kings Point grounds!] noted some of the connections between the U.S. Merchant Marines and American postal development. For example, merchant mariners informed Ben Franklin of the Gulf Stream; by charting it, Franklin was able to expedite mail service across the Atlantic.

He looks like a comedian in this photo. His speech was quite engaging.



A Great Neck Plaza Village Trustee announced that its Mayor had declared July 28, 2011 to be U.S. Maritime Heritage Day.

Afterward was a program-signing ceremony by the speakers. The guys were all really friendly and fun to chat with!



Philatelic services and stamp sales were provided by a table outside the auditorium. The Flushing Mobile Unit, a "Post Office on Wheels" that is often found on Flushing's Main Street and Queens Boulevard, provided additional sales support. It even had its own postmark, and I got my programs cross-canceled there.

Here is the Flushing mobile post office: