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

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

2023 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

The 2022 Calendar of Post Offices and Places

[Note: Direct purchase link: here.]

Well! I cannot believe this year is almost over. Postally speaking it hasn't been incredibly productive, though I still have plenty of stories to share. It has been tough to feel motivated since I've been unable to travel and experience many places first-hand; BUT, I have gotten a couple of posts out lately and I do hope that productivity continues. And perhaps most importantly, of course, there's the sixth annual Postlandia Calendar of Post Offices and Places!

Every month of the calendar features a photo and caption of a photogenic and/or historically significant post office. The P.O.s featured come in all manner of shapes, sizes, and—I kid you not—colors. It can take quite a bit of research (particularly old newspaper articles) to get to the bottom of some of their stories!

This year's calendar [← direct link to order] takes us from Appalachia to the Pacific Northwest, New England, California, and many places in between. We've got a post office surrounded with wagon wheels; a pink castle; and one of my absolute favorite post offices, in Pennsylvania (see below). We also visit what's known as the smallest post office in America: Ochopee, Florida, and I'll show it to you in a way you probably haven't seen it before.

Writing this as I usually do right around/during Thanksgiving, please allow me to publicly appreciate everyone who supports this crazy little endeavor of mine by purchasing a calendar. It both motivates to keep going and literally helps me keep going in the form of gas money! I might drive 2,000 miles over the course of a week as I visit 150 post offices on the road. It adds up!

2022 Postlandia Calendar Cover: Greenville, PA post office


I first wrote about Greenville eleven years ago, but have revisited the post office both physically (for better photos) and in terms of research. I even mentioned it on NPR back in 2011 as perhaps my favorite post office of all! I absolutely love this building and I hope you will too. More 2022 calendar highlights include:

California: The Castle


South Carolina: Take it for Granite


New York: Something Blue


In addition to (U.S.) holiday designations the calendar features notes about interesting dates in U.S. postal history. I've gotten feedback from several people saying they find that detail really cool.

Everyone I know who's gotten the Postlandia calendar in the past has enjoyed it. It's a fantastic gift for philatelists, people who love exploring off the beaten path, and current or former U.S. Postal Service employees! I've been using the printer Lulu for a long time and they always churn out consistent, high-quality calendars. The paper is thick, the colors come out great, the images are nice and high-resolution (far higher than I post online), and it easily holds up to writing in pen or Sharpie.

(For the sake of reference, here are the links to 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021 calendar write-ups.)

One fun thing I like to do, when sending out orders from family or friends, is wallpaper the heck out of the envelope with loads of cool old stamps. You can find a handful of examples here, here, and here (← definitely worth the look)!

Again, here is the link to ordering the calendar online. Thank you everybody for reading, liking posts, commenting, sharing, and for your support. Here's hoping to a happy and healthful 2022! —Evan

100+ Post Offices Celebrated the Eclipse with a Souvenir You Can Mail for

... And the Word from Wyoming

From Lincoln City, Oregon to McClellansville, South Carolina, post offices from—literally—coast to coast commemorated the eclipse of a lifetime last week with limited-time pictorial cancellation stamps for application to letters and postcards. Most of these post offices were in communities that experienced eclipse totality.

Post offices in more than 125 communities have special postmarks that are still available, for the 30 days beginning August 21. Idaho is best represented, with 29 post offices offering the cancellations, every single one of which was in the eclipse's path of totality (100% total eclipse by the moon). Oregon ranks second with 23 post offices, all but one of which experienced totality. (Union, Oregon, according to my sources, experienced a "mere" 99.4% sun coverage.) In Missouri and Wyoming 17 post offices have special cancels available, and Nebraska ranks next with 12. Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kansas, and Illinois are also represented among 'totality' post offices.



A handful of other post offices, dispersed around the country, experienced the eclipse more modestly but joined in the fun. Of these, a postmark available in San Diego represents the "least eclipsed" post office to make an offering. (To be fair, it is on behalf of a science center.) Among other outliers is Union Pier, Michigan, at 86%, among the closest to the eclipse in the state's far southwestern corner (a mere 283 miles from totality). In Mississippi a postmark representing Stennis Space Center (77%) can be had by mailing to the Postmaster in Jackson (84%). And this time around, what happens in Vegas (71%) doesn't have to stay there; mail your envelopes or postcards to: Postmaster, 1001 East Sunset Road, Las Vegas, NV 89199-9998 for their commemorative cancellation.

The Postal Bulletin from Aug. 17, 2017 provides a list of [nearly all] operations offering the cancellations; link here. It includes instructions for submitting your items for cancellation as well.

About 70 post offices are offering a 'standard' pictorial cancellation of this design:



However, many different designs are available. Some of my favorites include maps, featuring the eclipse's geographic arc, that tie the event more to the place. For example, Dawson Springs, Kentucky; Herculaneum, Missouri; and Stapleton, Nebraska:



Others highlight local scenes or monuments, for example: Jefferson City, Missouri; Hyannis, Nebraska; St. Joseph, Missouri; and Gering, Nebraska:



[Note: Please excuse the image quality above. The images stem from the Postal Bulletin, which never offers a very good resolution for these.]

In Nebraska several offices opened temporary units in parallel with nature's festivities: In Beatrice the postmark was "available Aug. 21 from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Temporary Post Office at Homestead National Monument of America." In Gering: "8 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Temporary Post Office at Five Rocks Amphitheatre." Scottsbluff: "8 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Temporary Post Office at Landers Soccer Complex." And Seward: "Aug. 21 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Temporary Post Office at Junto Event Center."

The Word from Wyoming

Perhaps my favorite set of cancellations comes from Wyoming, where many participating offices made a special effort to marry the celestial with the terrestrial by including their community's particular location on the planet by way of latitude and longitude coordinates, and time and duration of totality. Simple and to the point, many of these daters resemble a post office's "standard" four-bar cancellation device—literally, as illustrated below, a date stamp with four solid bars sticking out the right side for the purpose of cancelling a stamp. For these special postmarks, the bars are replaced with four lines of text featuring specific eclipse information for the community: the time of totality (in Mountain Daylight Time); the latitude; the longitude; and the duration of totality.

Here is an illustration of four-bar cancellations in regular use, and as interpreted by way of two of these eclipse postmarks, from Lander and Powder River, Wyoming:



Curious as to how this set of designs came to be, I checked in with Corporate Communications for USPS's Western Area and Colorado/Wyoming District, which did a nice job of promoting their impressive assortment of pictorials. Here are stories they posted re: Oregon, Idaho, Nebraska, Wyoming.

They referred me to Antoinett ("Toni") Benthusen, Postmaster of Powder River, Wyoming post office (a PTPO, for those who are into that kind of thing). Powder River, located 40 miles west of Casper, has a population of "approximately 17 (not counting the dogs and cats)." The community is located on U.S. 20/26, one major route for those traveling between the Black Hills of South Dakota and the Yellowstone / Jackson Hole area.

Here is the Powder River post office, photographed in 1997 by Postlandia friend John Gallagher. (We also have another photo, taken last year, by Jimmy Emerson.)



Toni provided some insights into the pictorial design process:

"I got the idea for my design from Julie Greer, Postmaster of Upton, WY. She suggested using the four-bar dater and replacing them with the Coordinates for Powder River..." Coordinates and other eclipse information came from eclipse2017.org.

One step in the pictorial creation process is copyright management, by way of artist's release: "When I went to fill out the paperwork there was an Artist Release form which either I needed to fill out as the Artist, or have the person who created the artwork fill it out. So, I called Julie and asked her if she would sign the form as the Artist. She said no, that I was the Artist; she only gave me the idea and then I ran with it, making me the Artist. WOW was I blown away, me an Artist?! I couldn't believe it!!!!!"

At this point "other offices (7 in all) started calling me and asking if they could use my design." And they needed help by a bona fide artist. "Would I help them with the paperwork since I had already done mine, and gotten approval to use the design for my stamp? I was so honored that they wanted to use my design and that" Corporate Communications specialist "David Rupert thought enough of it to use on a release." [See links, above.] "He then asked me to create a flyer with all the [participating] offices in Wyoming, and their addresses," for distribution to their customers. Here's a snippet from the flyer featuring several of the unique designs representing the state:



Toni recounts her experience at the Powder River post office last Monday:

[W]e sat just a few feet north of the center of the path of totality. This gave us a crystal clear view of the Eclipse, and what a spectacular event it was! The 20 or so people who chose to park off the edge of the highway were ecstatic about their choice! Immediately after the event a lady from Italy, who is currently living in California, came in to mail a backpack full of extra things she didn’t want to haul along on her trip. When she saw that I was selling the Eclipse Stamps and sleeves and doing the Special Cancellation she went outside and spread the word to everyone out there who all came in and bought me out of sheets of stamps and sleeves, and then bought envelopes to collect and send. I did 160 special cancellations that one day, which for my office is Huge!

I have since restocked my office with Eclipse stamps and sleeves so anyone interested can still purchase them from me or any other offices who still have them in stock. And it’s not too late to get the special cancellation postmark until September 21, 2017. Just send your cards and/or envelopes bearing First-Class postage stamps inside another larger self-addressed stamped envelope to any Post Office who are doing the special postmark.

I was very impressed by how calm and nice everyone was during the days before and after the event! ... The business people in Casper and Riverton interviewed on TV said ... they were very pleased with the amount of customers they had. So...

THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR MAKING THIS ONE OF THE FONDEST MEMORIES IN MY LIFE!

Finally, here are three photos from the day in Powder River, courtesy Postmaster Toni: getting ready for the big day, with glasses and special shirt for the occasion; viewers in from out of town, in front of the distinctively Wyoming cowboy-signed post office; and an image of the eclipse in progress, through a pinhole projected against the blue collection box.







See USPS eclipse photos at USPS Link. Data for the Postlandia map, top, from Vox.

CPU Adventures, III: Silver Dollar City

The Post Mark Collectors Club (PMCC) held its 2012 annual convention in Branson, Missouri. A feature of our annual conventions is a tour of one or more local post offices. Sometimes this involves taking ferries to small island post offices. Last year this meant a tour of 15 local operations in southwest Missouri.

However, omitted was one unusual operation, at a 61-acre theme park between Branson and Branson West: Silver Dollar City is themed for the 1880s, during when the not-so-successful Marble Cave Mining and Manufacturing Company mined guano from what turned out to be a limestone-walled cave. Eventually it was decided that a cave train would be a destination for tourists and that an 1880s-style city would be built around it. There are rides, festivals, shows, and a general store featuring a Community Post Office (CPO) as well. It was the very latter aspect that interested me, and which brought myself and two other postal vets (Kelvin and John) back to the park for a visit.

Silver Dollar City is obscenely busy; the free parking lots are packed, though you can pay $12 for 'preferred parking' (and valet parking is available for $30 per visit). We parked in a free lot and waited for a tram to the park entrance, at which the friendly staff, who claimed to never host any visitors for the sole purpose of seeing their post office, offered to escort us in for free and let us take photos.

First, a map:

The General Store is not too far inside the main entrance, and a nice sign greets you on the way in:

Silver Dollar City, MO Community Post Office:
Inside you witness a classic wooden postal counter with antique P.O. Boxes of the type one rarely sees:



I enjoyed the gilded old-style collection box out front and the sign which looks upon it:


Good stuff.