The 2021 Calendar of Post Offices and Places

[Edit, March 2021: the calendar has been removed from public sale.]

Hello, everyone! It's looking more and more likely that there will be a 2021 next year. To help celebrate, I am pleased to introduce the fifth annual Postlandia Calendar of Post Offices and Places! When I first started creating these back in 2016, I'd just completed my goal of visiting all 50 states by the age of 30. Since then I've reached 10,000 post offices photographed across the country, and this Thanksgiving I'd like thank everyone who has followed my travels, viewed my photographs, read my stories, and supported my mission by purchasing these calendars #ThanksForTheGasMoney.

The Postlandia calendar once again takes you across thousands of miles, celebrating 12 new photogenic and historic post offices from all across America. This year's batch takes you from the Caribbean to New England, down to the heart of Texas, and out to the rural West. Some of the offices are ridiculously historic, and a few have been thoughtfully repurposed. There are a couple of Depression-era Deco beauties, and one post office that dates back to 1816.

Each office is captioned, beneath a high-resolution image (much greater than what I present here) printed on thick, lustrous 100-pound paper that can stand up to your pens and Sharpies with ease.

[Link removed, March 2021:] Here is the direct link to the calendar on Lulu, my trusty printer.

The dates feature not just U.S. and religious holidays, but dates significant to American postal history. Because, why not? Learning is cool! Ever wanted to know when the first U.S. Airmail flight took place, or when the National Postal Museum opened? Find those dates, and more, inside.

2021 Postlandia Calendar Cover:


The cover (and one of the months) features one of the coolest post offices in the country: Hinsdale, New Hampshire, which has been housed in this very building since 1816. I couldn't believe my luck upon my visit several years back, when the setting sun hit the building at just the right angle, perfectly amplifying the building's warm hues. Here's a bit more of what's in store:

North Carolina: Deco Classic


Connecticut: Dining in Style


Michigan: Drive-Up Only


If, like me, you've been largely stuck at home this year and missing the world beyond, I hope this brings you some vicarious joy from the open road.

I've always said that this is the perfect gift for the special USPS employee or snail mail enthusiast in your life; a wonderful purchase for philatelist and stamp collectors; and generally speaking, just the perfect post office calendar. Again, the calendar is available [link removed], at the secure website of the high-quality printer Lulu. Everyone I know who's purchased the 2017, 2018, 2019, and/or 2020 Postlandia calendar has enjoyed it.

Postlandia accepts no advertising, because I hate ads. Selling calendars is how I recover a modicum of money doing what I love to do. You can also reach out to me directly if you'd be interested in donating. And of coure, find Postlandia on Facebook and Instagram!

Thank you!
Evan

Marck-et Research

The Early- and Mid-Century Federal Buildings of Bismarck, North Dakota

Bismarck, North Dakota is on the small side, as most state capitals go. With 55,000 residents the city ranks as the second most populous in North Dakota, though it ranks in the bottom-third when compared with other capital metropolitan areas across the country. Regardless, Bismarck is the largest city for 200 miles in any direction (Fargo, to the east, beats it out), and as such it is important postally speaking. Bismarck and Fargo house the only two remaining mail processing facilities in the state. The capital also boasts a historic early-century Federal Building, which we'll present here. In our next post we'll show vintage photos of the '60s-era facility that replaced it, inside and out.

North of downtown Bismarck lies the distinctive North Dakota State Capitol, at 242 feet tall the tallest building in the state. When it was constructed during the early 1910s, however, the then-new U.S. Post Office and Court House building was constructed at the west side of Bismarck's downtown district. It is located at 304 East Broadway Avenue and can be seen per 2011 Google Street View imagery here:


The building is described as part of a National Register of Historic Places nomination form for Bismarck's downtown district.

The federal government constructed this three-story building at the northwest corner of East Broadway and North 3rd Street in 1913. Architectural plans for the edifice were prepared by the Treasury Department's supervisory architect, James Knox. Upon completion, the Renaissance Revival-style building housed a Federal Post Office and District Court, one of only four such facilities in North Dakota. A three-story rear wing was added in 1937. The building was nominated to the National Register in 1976.

The U.S. Post Office and Courthouse is a steel framed structure veneered on the exterior by limestone ashlar. The Renaissance Revival character of the building is displayed by the rusticated stone work and large arch window openings at the first story; smooth stone finish and simple rectangular window openings at the second story; recessed window openings between paired stone columns at the third story; and quoin details at the wall corners. The building is also distinguished by a prominent hip roof, covered by red tiles and featuring wide eaves underscored by press- metal medallions. The design of the 1937 addition is sympathetic to the original.

Here, you can see the building both pre- and post-addition.



You can more easily see the dividing line between the original and extended structure from this rear photo, post-addition. Note how the style of the architecture blends largely seamlessly with the original.



Note: Unlike many other post offices/federal buildings that were expanded during the New Deal era, the Federal Building in Bismarck did not receive any lobby artwork.

The General Services Administration (GSA) and National Park Service (NPS) also feature descriptions of the building.

Now we move to the 1960s, to the precast concrete stylings of what is now known as the William L. Guy Federal Building. So renamed in 1999 after a former governor, this mid-century U.S. Post Office and Court House housed Bismarck's (at least non-processing) postal operations. Nowadays, the building houses the only classified (USPS-staffed) postal retail operation in Bismarck: the Downtown Station post office.

The facility was designed by architects Leonhard & Askew, and was completed in 1964. The building is located just two blocks north of the original Federal Building, and both facilities are managed by the General Services Administration. Many photos of the newly completed building are available at the National Archives, and they encompass both the interior and exterior of the building. Let's have a look!

Here is the building as photographed in 1964 (at NARA) and in 2011 (per Google Street View):




Inside, dry '60s-style right angles abound; though so do panels of marble and (at least back when) old-style P.O. boxes. The Archives feature completion photos of the elevator and P.O. box lobbies. As is custom in the Upper Midwest, the P.O. Box lobby (entrance at the 'right' of the building, is available to customers 24/7. (Don't abuse the privileges, though—the U.S. Marshals Service is housed in the building.







In the service lobby the counters are fronted with what appears to be Formica. (Can anyone with design chops confirm or correct this?) Ah, the 1960s. Compared with the federal buildings of the 1930s, the design is downright spartan. Though check out those vintage postal scales!





By this point you might observe that I am really not a fan of utilitarian mid-century architecture. So here's the work floor, lit by enough strings of fluorescent lighting to stretch something like halfway to China. The most interesting thing I see in these photos are the windows from the Postal Inspector catwalks above the floor.







In 1991 Main Post Office and mail processing operations relocated to this 45,000-square foot facility on the southeast side of town. Our friend John photographed it in 2005.



'Til next time!

Yes, Fracking Way: A New Post Office in an Oil Boom Town

It is exceedingly rare in this day and age that the U.S. Postal Service opens a new Post Office. I mean an entirely new, USPS-staffed, postal retail operation. The fact is it just doesn't happen. Sure, there are plenty of 'new' post offices around at new locations; but those are nearly always the result of: a) a consolidation of two retail facilities into one at a different location; b) the downsizing of a post office to a new location within the same ZIP code once its carriers have been moved to a different facility; or c) the reopening of a post office that had previously lost its lease. In other words, very rarely do you see a physical net gain of a postal retail facility when a 'new' post office opens. But a completely new postal retail unit is exactly what the oil boom town of Williston, North Dakota received as the Badlands Postal Store opened on July 1.

(But what, you ask, about all these new Contract Postal Units (CPUs), Staples pretty-much-CPUs, and Village "Post Offices" (VPOs) USPS keeps opening up? No, we're not counting those, because those aren't staffed by actual USPS personnel. The Badlands Postal Store is, and I say USPS's Dakotas District should be commended for not taking the typical 'cheap' route to provide an expansion of postal retail services in Williston.)

Where is Williston, you ask? It's in a very remote corner in what was, before the advent of hydraulic fracturing, a very sleepy part of America. How remote, you ask? The town is more than 600 miles from the nearest million-person population centers. Minneapolis is 620 miles away, about the same distance as Williston is to Calgary up in Canada. Put in East Coast terms, that's the distance from Boston, past New York and D.C., all the way to a point 70 miles south of Richmond, Virginia. But these days Williston is at the center of the U.S.'s hottest job market.

Of course, there's a map for that.


The population of Williston has ballooned from 13,000 in 2009 to more than 20,000 today, and the growth shows no signs of abating. Much of the new development has occurred to either the north or west of the city's core, with particular expansion north along U.S. 2. The location of this new post office reflects this; it resides north of the town's airport, bringing the post office three miles closer to large commercial and industrial developments that have been built north of town over the past few years. Makes sense to me.

Williston, ND Postal Map:


(If you're interested in getting a sense for the recent growth patterns in and around Williston over the past few years, the author recommends studying the 'historical' satellite imagery available on Google Maps, which presently dates as far back as 1995.)

As the city has grown so too have the demands on Williston's post office, with customers fretting over the ever-longer lines and wait times. North Dakota Senators Heidi Heitkamp and John Hoeven have been championing a new post office in Williston for some time; Minot's KMOT covered the opening and quotes Senator Heitkamp: "We have been struggling for many years. ... We've been trying to get upgrades to the Williston Post Office. As the post office is struggling financially across the country, I think sometimes it's very hard to convince them to make investments in a place where they don't have a lot of familiarity."

Williston's Herald writes that postal service improvements have been made throughout the region, including the addition of 460 post office boxes in Parshall, 90 miles to the east. This said, the author observes that of the ten closest post offices to Williston, several have already been converted to Postmaster-less POStPlan operations: the towns of Trenton, Alexander, Arnegard, and Bainville [MT] now possess four-hour post offices, while Epping and Cartwright have been downgraded to two-hour operations. Should the populations in these smaller communities expand and should additional services be required, would these offices, too, receive reinstated hours and improved treatment?

Back in Williston, the Badlands Postal Store—located at 4315 9th Ave. W, Unit 411—possesses 2,800 P.O. Boxes available for rent. Its inaugural retail operating hours are 9:00am to 4:30pm. The office itself is open 24/7 to enable maximum access to P.O. Boxes as well as a self-service kiosk in the lobby.

(P.S. USPS, if you're reading this, note that your online Locator tool woefully misplaces the Badlands Postal Store on a map. The location is north of the airport, not directly west of the main office downtown! People will get terribly lost if they obey your map.)

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Gary S., a friend of Going Postal, visited the Badlands Retail Store on its opening day and provided the following photos and much information for this report.

The Badlands Retail Store is so named because it is resides in the new Badlands Town Center development, which, according to town documents, is to be a 5.5-acre retail center built near what will be a large new housing subdivision and Williston's Walmart. Groundbreaking occurred on June 24, 2013 and stores are slated to open throughout this year. (According to a developer, "100% occupancy" was hoped for "by the second quarter of 2014".) That said, the Badlands Postal Store became the first commercial operation to open in the development on July 1.

The following are opening-day photos.





Gary writes: "At first I thought I had the wrong place, as the parking lot was completely deserted, but then I saw the Postal Service banner on the building. I arrived about 2 1/2 hours after the post office opened and not a customer was around. The clerk told me that it had been a slow morning. Obviously, word about the new post office had not gotten out yet. I saw three clerks, they were mostly just getting things straightened away in the building."

There was still clear work to do at the new facility. Only temporary banners were in place let customers know that a post office was open. (The author suspects that a permanent and backlit Sonic Eagle sign will be installed.) The door didn't yet have the stenciled lettering with the name of the post office and its hours of operation. Furthermore, the flagpole and an exterior blue collection box were not yet in place. Finally, there was not yet a postmarking device unique to the facility (only a hand-me-down from the Williston MPO). But with the Postal Service progress takes a little bit of time, and these issues will in all likelihood be resolved by the time the shopping center reaches full commercial steam and customers become more aware of the location.

One of the great things about post office openings is that you're usually allowed to take photographs inside with minimal-to-no hassle, because USPS wants to show the facility off! First-day interior photos at the Badlands Postal Store show a clean, modern facility. All the counters, customer work areas, and waste receptacles feature USPS's current faux-blue marble-atop-wood trim design motif. All work areas featured a complete collection of postal service [Insurance, Certified, etc.] forms. At the retail window three clerk stations were fully set up and ready to serve customers (though, based on the above first-hand observations it will take a while before post office traffic reaches full steam).

Williston, ND: Badlands Postal Store customer lobby


Williston, ND: Badlands Postal Store retail counter


Finally, here is a photo from the P.O. Box area. Relish the background view out the window: it's probably the last time you will see the landscape so comparatively pristine.

Williston, ND: Badlands Postal Store P.O. Box area


Going Postal hopes to check back with the Badlands Postal Store in a few months, when the post office is more polished and we will likely find a much busier scene.

More about the Northeast?

As I've commented once before, I'm a bit disappointed that this blog doesn't cover a geographically uniform distribution of post offices through the country. However, since most of the post offices I've visited span just Ohio to Maine, those are the ones that get largely covered in this blog.

So this evening I present to you yet more New England -- okay, so it's the town [post office] of New England, North Dakota, a town of 600 in the southwest part of the state. The name stems from the fact that most early settlers to the town were from Vermont and Massachusetts. Don't know why they chose to move. In any case, enjoy!

A Tale of Two Antlers

On my 2008 cross-country road trip, I couldn't decide how best to get from Minneapolis to Yellowstone. So I took what was obviously the most straightforward route, jutting north 250 miles up to Winnipeg, crossing Manitoba and tipping into Saskatchewan (collecting some Canadian postmarks along the way -- and let me tell you, they were the FRIENDLIEST about it -- every single office), and diving south back to Bismarck, to the Black Hills of South Dakota, and eventually over to Yellowstone.

My AAA/CAA map showed me a cute little pairing -- a town in Saskatchewan and a town (60 miles south) in North Dakota called Antler. So, I stopped at both and got each postmark.

Here's a map:

View Larger
The Antler, SK office was in the back of a woman's house, and had no signage except for hours in the window. It was fantastic!

As all the roads in Saskatchewan were gravel, I headed back into Manitoba for the crossover back to the States. After all, it was the middle of nowhere, how long could it take to get back into the country?

As it turns out, A LONG TIME. Apparently it's uncommon to see solo 21-year-old males from New York City crossing back into the country in the middle of absolute nowhere (this is what it looks like from the Manitoba side -- note how Google Street View turns off near the security-sensitive border crossing), and so they took the liberty of inspecting every single item in my car over 45 minutes. To their credit, they packed my trunk more nicely than I'd had it prior!

It's a good thing they shut my car engine off, or it would've run out of gas. (It was more expensive in Canada, so I saved up to buy back in the States.) Finally, a couple of miles down the road was the town of Antler, ND -- population 55 (and gas $3.99⁹). It featured a Standard Oil gas station and, of course, the Antler post office. Shannon, the Officer-in-Charge, was getting promoted to Postmaster the next day, and to celebrate I took her photo in front of the office. Here's a photo I took from the gas station (with the PO in the background):