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

Island Post Offices of Maine, Part IV: Monhegan

Hi, everyone! It's been a while. Life; motivation; etc., y'know? I have been feeling motivated to write a bit since I just took my first post office trip in a while. It was actually a pair of weeklong trips, in early October, through northern New England and Upstate New York, and during them I photographed 306 post offices both old and new. (Actually, just about 250 of them were new. The other images are generally greatly improved pictures of places I visited on the order of ten years ago.)

It was peak tourist season in northern New England for leaf peeper season, and so I bounced around a lot to track down decent rates for lodging. One unexpected detour took me to the coast of Maine, where I spent several afternoons taking ferries to visit post offices on more islands. This will be the fourth Postlandia post to feature post offices on the islands of Maine; the first three were published just about exactly ten years ago: November 2011. Here's a link to the first post!

The posts of ten years ago featured MacMahan, Squirrel, and Bustins Islands. This time we head further east along the Mid-Coast region, to several post offices accessible via ferry from the towns of Port Clyde, Rockland, and Lincolnville.

I'm not sure exactly how this post is going to play out at this time, but I think I'd like to get back to basics and share some fun findings from my experiences. Adventure time! Let's go.

Monhegan, Maine:

It's not often one takes the last boat out to Monhegan and returns the same afternoon, so I was asked if I'd meant to park in a short-term parking spot along the dock. Yep—I had! I'd be joining laundry and one of the employees at the Island Inn, as well as several visitors and residents, on the journey out, and once offboard I'd have about a half hour to find and photograph what I wanted, and return. This was indeed how I was spending the greater part of my afternoon (having driven the hour 45 minutes from Portland) and $38, I reassured them. The ferry departed Port Clyde at 3:00 and returned at 4:30.


View from the ferry, looking back toward Port Clyde.

Monhegan features a lighthouse, a museum, multiple lodgings, and art studios to explore for those not popping off the boat for a mere 20-minute jaunt. During that time, however, I was able to get nice photographs of the Monhegan post office and, on the 0.3-mile walk there encountered an intriguing little spot called "Elva's Old P.O."—something that definitely demanded a little visit.

But first, here are a couple of scenes from the island on my way to the post office:

Waiting at the dock on Monhegan; Island Inn in the background.


Painting the landscape; Monhegan.


The community "bulletin board."


Monhegan map: the dock, the post office, and Elva's Old P.O.

Elva's Old P.O.:

Elva's Old P.O., Monhegan, Maine


Elva's Old P.O., Monhegan, Maine

With a sign like:

POTTERY JEWELRY TOYS TEXTILES
doo-dads gew-gaws trinkets trifles
baubles bric-a-brac frippery frivolity
Coolest Stuff on a Half-tide Ledge!

How could you possibly resist?

The store was named after Mrs. Elva B. Moody, who served for decades as Monhegan's Postmaster. The store, indeed, served as the post office until the mid-1970s.

It is lovely inside, and the proprietor is very nice. Here's a scene from inside. Note the old post office sign on the wall!


Scene from Elva's Old P.O., with old post office sign

The book "The Fortunate Island of Monhegan: A Historical Monograph," by Charles Francis Jenney (1922) details the postal history of Monhegan:

Service was established in 1883 from Port Clyde to Monhegan on Tuesday and Saturday, the schedule providing that the carrier should leave Port Clyde at 1 p. m., arrive at Monhegan at 6 p. m., leave Monhegan at 7 a. m., and arrive at Port Clyde at 12 m. Effective on March 22, 1884, an order was issued that Port Clyde be omitted and the route begun at Boothbay, the carrier leaving Boothbay at 12:30 p. m., arriving at Monhegan at 6:30 p. m., leaving Monhegan at 6:30 a. m., and arriving at Boothbay at 11:30 a. m.

The route and schedule were reversed June 1, 1885, Monhegan being made the head of the route.

In 1889, upon the division of Boothbay, the terminus on the mainland became Boothbay Harbor. The schedule in effect for the contract term beginning July 1, 1889, was as follows: Monhegan to Boothbay Harbor, three times a week on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, from April 1 to November 30, and twice a week on Tuesday and Saturday, from December 1 to March 31 of each year. No change was made until June 1, 1902, when an order was issued increasing the service to six times a week, from June 1 to September 30 of each year and the winter service to three times a week.

Effective July 1, 1908, service was established between Thomaston and Monhegan, six times a week between June 1, and September 30, service being performed the remainder of the year from Monhegan to Boothbay Harbor, three times a week, by a schedule satisfactory to the department.

The postmasters at Monhegan, and the dates of their appointments are as follows: Lewis L. Lowell, March 27, 1882; Edmund P. Stevens, Mav 14, 1883; Mary Stevens, August 11, 1884; Daniel M. Davis, April 14, 1891; and Elva B. Moody, August 8, 1919.

Mail is still transported by ferry to this day. USPS's Postmaster Finder tool fills in the rest of the gaps in Monhegan's Postmaster history. It, combined with the information above, reveals that Elva served as Postmaster for more than 42 years.

Postmaster Finder: "Mrs. Elva B. Moody's name changed to Mrs. Elva B. Nicholson on December 18, 1923; to Miss Elva Brackett in April 1937; and back to Mrs. Elva B. Nicholson on March 31, 1958. Mrs. Winifred T. Burton assumed the position of Postmaster on Dec. 18, 1961."

Since then six people have held the title of Postmaster or Officer-in-Charge of Monhegan: Karen M. Wincapaw; Jean M. Schnell; Linda Wagner; Emily T. Carver; Brent A. Meservey; and (currently, since 2015) Carly E. (Mayhew) Feibusch.

I was told (alas, only once I was on the boat on my way back) that the P.O. then relocated to a white house behind the Island Inn, and that there had been an extension built onto the structure. I'm unable to identify the exact property at this time.

The post office today

According to a slightly old version of USPS's Leased Facilities Report*, the post office has been at its current site as of November 1987. A community association owns the property, and as of a few years ago the 526-square-foot space was being leased for $12,000 per year.

* The USPS Leased Facilities Report has stopped including original building / site occupation dates. Why? I have no damn clue. There was no reason to retract or remove the information from its databases. I presently use an archived (2015) version of the Report for such information.

The post office is located in what looked like a well-kept building with texturific New England-style siding. The P.O. features a worn, handmade sign and its hours are Monday through Friday: 8:00 am—1:00 pm, 1:30 pm—2:30 pm, and Saturday: 9:30 am—1:00 pm, meaning it would be closed (and, indeed, locked) when I stopped by. This just meant I'd have to mail out for a postmark at a later time!

The Monhegan post office::




Directly adjacent to the post office is the Black Duck Emporium, a pleasant-seeming gift shop and café that was closing for the day at about the time I arrived. There appeared to be living quarters above the store.

And with that, it's time to return to the mainland. For now I'll leave you with a photo from the Port Clyde—Monhegan ferry. See you next time!

2019 Postal Summary

It's hard to imagine that this blog was founded nearly a decade ago, and that this is my TENTH Postal Summary. I didn't write a lot here this past year... it's not because I haven't been up to anything (quite the contrary!), but I've been focusing more of my energies on the quicker 'n easier Instagram world. Postlandia has a popular, growing Instagram feed. I posted more than 400 (mostly) postal-related photos in 2019, including at least three P.O.s from every U.S. state.

(As always, my prior summaries can be found at these links: 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018. Starting next year I'm just gonna link to this page with entries tagged "annual postal summary," heh. Let's go!)

2019 was an exciting year. I visited a decent 708 new, active postal operations this year across 18 states (in addition to re-visiting classics in New York). After correcting for a handful of errors in my spreadsheet, my grand total is now 9,994 post offices.

This year's travels included three major trips:
1. Puerto Rico / the U.S. Virgin Islands (17 days, all 144 post offices)
2. Ohio Valley / South (21 days, 351 new POs)
3. Delmarva Peninsula / eastern Virginia (13 days, 213 new POs)

Here I am at the San Antonio, Puerto Rico post office—my last in the territory, 11 days after my first. I'm holding a big, paper AAA map with every post office in Puerto circled (and highlighted, once I visited them); my finger is pointing to the San Antonio post office in the upper left corner:



Me at the Frederiksted, V.I. post office—my last in the territory, at the end of two days visiting its three main islands:



I was fortunate to be able to attend the First Day ceremony of the Post Office Murals stamps in Piggott, Arkansas on April 10, stopping at a forum: Postal Places, at Carnegie Mellon University on April 26, an event with an impressive roster of guests from postal circles. Sadly I can't find a link to the four amazing grad student-developed projects online, but here is a link to the course online.



During my trip to Delmarva [Delaware / Maryland / Virginia] I took a couple of side trips into Chesapeake Bay to visit the two post offices at Smith Island, Maryland, as well as the post office in Tangier Island, Virginia. Here I am at the latter:



Thank you to the dozens of people who purchased the 2020 Postlandia calendar! Your support is always greatly appreciated. This has always been a passion project, and I don't get paid a dime to do any of this.

I had some fun mailing packages in 2019...

As always, the counts in this post include active 'standard' post offices, Contract Postal Units (CPUs), carrier annexes, and mail processing plants. They do not include former sites (e.g. historic post office buildings), places I've previously been to but revisited (say, to take a better photo), or previously discontinued operations. Here are some assorted photos from various operations I've visited this year:

Cataño, Puerto Rico Detached Mail Delivery Unit


Virginia Beach, Virginia: McDonald Garden Center CPU


North Little Rock, Arkansas (former site, now library)


Paducah, Kentucky Carrier Annex


I continued documenting the U.S. Postal Service's New Deal treasures as well, for example:

Eutaw, Alabama: "The Countryside," by Robert Gwathmey (1941)

2019 By the Numbers

I visited as many as 34 post offices (of which 31 were new) in one day this year (in the Delmarva Peninsula portion of Virginia). State by state—and territory by territory:

Puerto Rico: 132 post offices
Focus/Foci: [All post offices in the territory]

Virginia: 118 post offices
Eastern counties of the Delmarva Peninsula; Hampton Roads; Richmond

Arkansas: 79 post offices
Northeast corner; Little Rock south to El Dorado

Louisiana: 70 post offices
North central Louisiana; Alexandria

Maryland: 58 post offices
Eastern Shore

Kentucky: 47 post offices
Ohio River Valley (western counties); Berea

Delaware: 34 post offices
North of Wilmington; eastern shore; Sussex County

Missouri: 32 post offices
Southeastern corner

Alabama: 27 post offices
Birmingham; northeast corner

Pennsylvania: 21 post offices
North of Pittsburgh

Tennessee: 19 post offices
Chattanooga; Cleveland; Jellico

Mississippi: 17 post offices
East of Jackson to Meridian

Indiana: 12 post offices
Evansville, to wit:



U.S. Virgin Islands: 12 post offices
[All post offices in the territory]

West Virginia: 12 post offices
Huntington; Charleston north

Massachusetts: 7 post offices
South of Quabbin Reservoir

Ohio: 5 post offices
Random Akron to Columbus; Marietta north

Georgia: 3 post offices
Dade County (NW corner)

Illinois: 2 post offices
Brookport; Cairo

North Carolina: 1 post offices
Knotts Island

This year I finished visiting every post office in Delaware, even getting to visit the post office at Dover Air Force Base. The impetus for the trip was the 58th annual Post Mark Collectors Club (PMCC) Convention, which took place in Dover, Delaware back in late September.

The "kids' table," PMCC convention:


Me at Talleyville Branch, Wilmington, DE, my final post office in the First State:


Counting Counties:
I visited 100 new counties in 2019. They are the dark blue counties east of Texas and south of New York on this travel map:



Dear readers, thank you for your continued support! I'm hoping to share many more new post office stories and photos with you in 2020.

The 2020 Calendar of Post Offices and Places

So! It's been a while since I've written many articles, but I've still been logging several thousand miles visiting post offices. Alas, it's that glorious time of the year that brings us pumpkin spice and the annual Postlandia Calendar of Post Offices and Places. I'm not here to write about the flavors of autumn, so hello calendar! For those of you new to the 'tradition,' the Postlandia calendar is a 12-month calendar that features a different, interesting, and photogenic post office for each month, plus a description of why it's significant. There's nothing else quite like it anywhere. This will be the fourth iteration, and the calendar has now featured at least one post office from most U.S. states.

The 2020 edition of the Postlandia calendar takes us to post offices far and wide—notably the Caribbean, home to the U.S. Post Offices of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. I've still yet to transcribe my adventures, but I visited every single P.O. in both U.S. territories earlier this year, and it was an unforgettable experience. You'll see two really cool finds from the Caribbean in the calendar. This said, the calendar also takes us to the Northwest, New England, the Mid-Atlantic, and all the way out to the Grand Canyon. The post offices are big and small, and there's something for everyone. (Everyone who's interested in post offices and/or snail mail, at least.)

Here's the [edit: link removed; project retired] direct link to the calendar on Lulu, my trusty printer.

The images are printed in high resolution (far better than I present on this site), on high-quality paper. The dates include not only U.S. holidays but dates significant to American postal history. And, yes, you can write on it—again, good paper. Thick stuff.

Postlandia Calendar cover:


The cover (and one of the months) features one of my all-time favorite post offices: Milton, Pennsylvania. Heck, I featured it in a blog post back in 2011. But I stopped back to photograph it again earlier this year with far better lighting on the building, and this gem definitely deserves another look.

Delaware: Birth of an Empire


Illinois: A "Great American Post Office"


Texarkana: Two States, one Post Office


As always, there's so much more where these came from. I hope you experience as much enjoyment with this calendar next year as I've enjoyed curating it. Remember—I've trekked to thousands of post offices (I'm presently just shy of 10,000) so I can bring you some of the very best, anywhere.

I refuse to sell advertising on any website I manage or any product I manage, so this is the only way I make even a modicum of money from this hobby. It really does make a dent in my gas money bills, so I want to thank everyone who purchases a calendar for your support.

Again, the link to the calendar is [removed]. 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. The calendar is available [link removed], at the secure website of the high-quality printer Lulu. Everyone I know who's purchased either the 2017, the 2018, or the 2019 Postlandia post office calendar has loved it!

BONUS!!

I'm a huge fan of FDR-era (1933-1942) post offices, more than 1,000 of which house beautiful examples of New Deal artwork. Last year I introduced a second calendar that overlaps somewhat with our postal fandom, and this year I'm bringing it back: [retired link] New Deal Legacy: 2020!

It features a bit of postal goodness from the FDR era, but goes way beyond to highlight some of the myriad of accomplishments put forth by various New Deal agencies across the country, including the Works Progress Administration (WPA), Public Works Administration (PWA), and Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC).

Again, each image in the calendar is accompanied by a full description of exactly what's going on.

2020 New Deal Legacy Calendar cover:


The projects...

Louisiana: Deco Justice


New Mexico: Desert Pride


Colorado: The High Road


The high-resolution images include the stories that make each one image significant. They are printed on thick, high-quality paper and will hold up to all of your writing-on-your-calendar needs. Just as with the Postlandia calendar, these span the country. There's something for everyone. Here is the combined link to my author's page that will lead you to both the the Postlandia and New Deal Legacy 2020 calendars.

Thank you for your continued support.
Evan

Going Galápagos—The Post Office Without Stamps

My lovely friends Brian and Katie took a long-awaited trip to the Galápagos Islands a few months back, and they were thrilled to pass on information about the, shall we say, informal 'Post Office' on Floreana Island.

The Galápagos Islands (and the biota living thereupon) are among the most distinctive in the world, straddling the Equator across a span of a couple hundred miles. The archipelago constitutes a province of Ecuador and currently houses 25,000 residents. More significantly, the islands house native species not found anywhere else in the world, and the rich diversity of animal and plant life inspired Charles Darwin's development of the theories of natural selection and evolution. These islands changed our understanding of life as we know it. But I digress.

As always, let's introduce some mappy goodness. Below, the islands are in the left-center of the initial map:



Floreana Island is at the southern end of the archipelago:



And here's a closer view of Floreana Island [bottom of map]—note Post Office Bay!


The Bahía Post Office on Floreana Island has been around since 1793. Back in the day the Galápagos were a stopping point for large whaling vessels. Now imagine: your home country is somewhere in Europe, and here you are in the middle of the Pacific Ocean off the coast of South America, half a world away (and the Panama Canal not to be built for another century). Your voyage is not just months but probably multiple years long. The people who invented the telegraph haven't been born yet. So how do you communicate with loved ones?

Well, many whalers pondered this (let's just say they were all in the same boat—hah, get it?). Many of them ended up relying on each other. Galapagos.org writes:

This is one of the few visitor sites in Galapagos where human history is the main focus. A group of whalers placed a wooden barrel here in 1793 and called it a post office. Traveling seamen would leave addressed letters in the barrel and hope that the next seamen to come along might be headed in the direction of their letters’ destinations. Today, visitors leave their own postcards and sift through the current pile of cards—if they find one that they can hand-deliver, they take it with them.

My friend Katie writes that the principle behind the site hasn't changed much...
1. To send a letter: you write a post card, do not put a stamp on it and put it in the mailbox.
2. To deliver a post card: You look through all the post cards in the mailbox and find one that goes somewhere near where you live. You take that post card home and drop it off at their house when you have time.

(I have no idea how long the average item remains in the mailbox or what percentage do actually get delivered. Or if some people just bring it back to their home country and mail it from there.)

Here are some photos by my friend, April 2015; the post office, some signage, and mail barrel:





I have no idea what is going on by the barrel. (Does that head-thing on the right remind anybody else of Donnie Darko??) Unfortunately it appears there has been some graffiti as well. That said, this is definitely unique and utterly cool!

You can read more about the Floreana Island post office here:
The Washington Post: Galapagos island relies on travelers to deliver the mail
Land Loper: The Post Office at the End of the World
Galapagos.org

Bonus: Ecuador's postal service is called Correos del Ecuador and there are other, more traditional, post offices on the Galápagos Islands. Here are some descriptions.

Puerto Ayora, Isla Santa Cruz:
EcuadorExplorer.com: "The main drag, Charles Darwin, runs east-west along the bay. At the westernmost end of town you will find the Academy Bay port, the main grocery store, hardware store and post office." GoVisitGalapagos.com: There is only one bank in town with an ATM machine and the post office is right hear the harbor.

Puerto Villamil, Isla Isabela:
Miami.edu: "Buildings are concrete block, often colorfully painted or sporting murals as on the post office below. As the postmistress is the mother of one of the town’s laundress, when the laundress is out of town, you can pick up your laundry at the post office."

There's are photos of the post office here (fourth photo on the page) and here!

Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, Isla de San Cristóbal:
Great photo here! "There aren't many places where you can send or receive mail in the Galápagos islands, but on San Cristóbal the town of Puerto Baquerizo Moreno has a post office."

The Old Post Office Restaurant; Edisto Island, SC

If you're looking to get away from the hustle of Charleston, Edisto Island is a photogenic and relaxed community within an hour of the city. It's not commercialized and not heavily trafficked as is Hilton Head Island. I visited both areas in April during a brief jaunt to the South. Of course my mission on Edisto was to photograph the post office, which lies 17 miles down from its nearest, and smaller, (and not to mention highly photogenic) neighbor in Adams Run. The present post office building, a mid-'80s model, is a rather standard structure. The former post office site, however, which I first noticed as a seemingly extraneous dot on the Google Maps app on my phone, is definitely worth a look. It's now the Old Post Office Restaurant, and they've got the old postal window to prove it! But first, a photo of the location.



Here's a general map of the area.



The present post office has been occupied by USPS since June 1985, and its current lease is for $18,500 per year -- $13.21 per interior square foot.

Edisto Island, SC post office


Edisto Island has had a post office since 1832, though USPS's Postmaster Finder does not currently maintain Postmaster information for the office prior to 1950. Edisto Beach, a community about seven miles southwest of the Old Post Office, maintained a short-lived post office that was in operation between 1950 and 1953. (The current Edisto Island post office lies three miles closer to the latter.)

The old Edisto post office [and general store and gas station] was a central meeting point for locals and visitors alike. But the site's significance dates to the late 18th century. According to a story in a Charleston historical magazine, the site "encompasses the restored Bailey House ca. 1799, and Bailey's Store, a pre-war relic from Edingsville Beach, once a thriving, antebellum seaside resort and one of the last, if not the last, surviving commercial building on Edisto Island." [Edingsville Beach lies along the Atlantic, about three miles south of the Old Post Office.]

The present Old Post Office Restaurant is the second such institution to reside at this location. The first O.P.O. Restaurant opened in 1988, three years after the post office moved out. It closed in 2006, but not after having received press coverage in such publications as USA Today and Gourmet Magazine.

The husband-and-wife team of Adam and Toniann Morris picked up the gauntlet soon after the original O.P.O. Restaurant closed. They devoted extensive effort into renovating the property and restaurant facilities -- both while teaching full-time. The present Old Post Office Restaurant opened April 2009, and part of what makes this a fun stop for the postal buff are the little details the couple has worked in to maintain the restaurant's connection to its past. To wit:

The mailbox is beautifully decorated with a stamp and giant Edisto Island postmark.


The old postal window, just inside the entrance.


I love signs on the bathroom doors, highly stylized postmarks in London Underground form:


The Morrises are impeccably friendly. The diners I witnessed while I was in town appeared to be enjoying their meals. With more post office buildings being either sold or shuttered, one can only hope that more owners will recognize and maintain the heritage of these sites, much as the Morrises have.

Other points of interest nearby include the With These Hands Gallery, which is right next door; and the Edisto Island Serpentarium, a few hundred feet down the road.