They Closed Anyway: Pennsylvania RAOI

During the summer and fall of 2011 I spent several weekends photographing myriads of post offices in rural Pennsylvania, with the fear that many might close. There was a good chance 200 Pennsylvania post offices would close by the end of 2011, courtesy USPS's ill-fated Retail Access Optimization Initiative (RAOI), which targeted 3,700 operations nationwide for closure. While RAOI was abandoned and replaced with the hours-reducing POStPlan last year, several threatened post offices in western Pennsylvania closed regardless due to emergency suspensions.

The suspended offices of Denbo and Lake Geneva, in the southwest corner of the state, lie along the Monongahela River, which flows north to merge with the Allegheny in Pittsburgh and form the Ohio. The post offices of New Geneva and Lake Lynn, lie just seven miles apart. The latter is within a mile's drive of West Virginia.

All of these post offices represent a vanishing facet of the American rural landscape.

Here's a map of the towns in question:


Vowinckel lies just beyond the southernmost reaches of the 500,000-acre Allegheny National Forest and 20 miles NNE of the nearest city, Clarion. The area is rather remote and the community is unincorporated, although the census placed its population at 139. There has been a post office in Vownickel since the 1880s, and in its latest iteration the office lay in an addition to a home. I photographed the building in 2009, just before the retirement of Vowinckel's last Postmaster: Perry W. McAfoose served from 1993 to 2009; two Officers-on-Charge were appointed before the operation was suspended October 7, 2011.

Vowinckel, PA post office:


Denbo, PA post office:


Admittedly, this post office was difficult to find. Main Street in Denbo juts off local Route 88 with no signage, makes an unexpected turn across some train tracks, and consists of a long cluster of houses whose addresses I don't recall seeing. The population of unincorporated Denbo is unavailable since the Census does not even define the community. I found the worn building alongside a dusty 'parking lot' with what appeared to be a porch supported by cinder blocks. (In other words, "awesome.")

The nearest post offices lie four miles in either direction. Denbo's post office was suspended Nov. 10, 2011.

New Geneva, PA lies just north of The National Park Service's Friendship Hill National Historic Site. Friendship Hill and New Geneva were first established in the late 1700s by Geneva-born Albert Gallatin, who became U.S. Senator and one of the U.S.'s first Secretaries of State. The New Geneva post office resided on the first floor of a house whose back appeared to be built into a hill.

New Geneva, PA post office:


The New Geneva post office, like Vowinckel's, was suspended October 7, 2011. If you believe the satellite view, there are a couple dozen residences in the town. The nearest post office is in the equally small town of Martin, two miles away.

A seven-mile drive southeast of New Geneva lies Lake Lynn, a town just north of the West Virginia border which possessed what appeared to be not more than a dozen homes. The Lake Lynn post office was suspended July 30, 2012; the nearest post office is Point Marion's, three miles away.

Lake Lynn, PA post office:

Tennessee CPUs: University Edition

Usually I'd write something grand and poetic. But I've had a lot on my plate lately, so here's a bunch of Contract Postal Units (CPUs) serving colleges and universities in Tennessee. Most of these were visited July 2012.

The University of Tennessee in Knoxville lies just southwest of the city's downtown. When I visited it last summer there was no parking available anywhere due to massive construction projects. Like most college post offices / mail centers, this is located in the basement of the student center, here called the Carolyn P. Brown University Center. Fortunately I was in and out in three minutes, meaning my car didn't get towed from a reserved spot out back.

Knoxville, TN: University CPU




Tennessee Tech University lies in Cookeville, a town about 80 miles east of Nashville along I-80. The Contract Postal Unit lies in the basement of the Roaden University Center at the effective heart of the campus.

Cookeville, TN: Tennessee Tech CPU




Middle Tennessee State University possesses a CPU within the Keathley University Center, which also houses the Phillips Bookstore.

Murfreesboro, TN: MTSU CPU (Station A)




The elite Vanderbilt University in Nashville operates a CPU in the basement of Rand Hall, and was (at least when I visited it in 2009) one of the most packed operations I have witnessed to date.

Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University CPU (Station B)


Mail Services has uploaded a photo of its new station layout here.

February Pictorial Postmark / Post Office Tour

Featuring a handful of postmark images and information from U.S. Postal Bulletin #22357. In one of our most recent posts we visited a wonderfully remote corner of the country with Valentine, Texas. Valentine offers a pictorial postmark for which people submit their mail for cancellation from around the world.

For those who might be a little less well-off romantically speaking, there's an apt pictorial postmark available from northeast Oklahoma by way of the Broken Arrow post office. This 20,000-square-foot post office building has been occupied by the Postal Service for 30 years.



The Broken Arrow Station postmark can be sent for at the address at right, and is available for 30 days as of February 14.



USPS introduced its Rosa Parks stamp with two first-day ceremonies in Detroit on February 4. However, Rosa Parks Station pictorial cancellations are available from both Oklahoma City and the small town of Newtonville, New Jersey, which lies 45 minutes southeast of Philadelphia. Why there? The pictorial is sponsored by the African American Heritage Museum of Southern New Jersey, which lies in Newtonville. The pictorial postmark is available for 30 days beginning February 9.



The Newtonville post office is rather isolated for a New Jersey operation: the closest post office lies nearly seven miles away. The post office building is rather nondescript, sharing residence with, well, an actual residence!



However, the sign along the road is distinct and nice:


One of the nicest pictorial designs I've seen in a long time comes courtesy the Tucson post office, or, more precisely, the Postal History Foundation in Tucson, discussed in this previous entry. If you think that state appears to contain the states of Arizona and New Mexico, well, there's good reason for that!



The Campton, NH and Plymouth, NH post offices are offering pictorial cancellations tied to the release of the White Mountain National Forest quarter (February 21). Campton and Plymouth both lie near the southern end of the forest. The Plymouth post office is a large WPA building with interior mural.





Until next time!

Postal Tour: Rapid City, SD

In southwest South Dakota, near the Black Hills, Badlands, and the monuments of Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse, lies the local metropolis and gateway to the region -- Rapid City with its roughly 69,000 residents. Despite its comparatively small size it's the largest city within a 350-mile drive, which means that the city's mail processing operations are not slated for consolidation at any time under USPS's Area Mail Processing (Network "Rationalization") plan.

Rapid City's postal footprint is distinct in that while the city could accommodate one or more classified postal stations, there are only five numbered contract stations beyond the Main Post Office / P&DF.

Here's a map of the area:


Our tour begins with the former site of the Rapid City Post Office: a stately 1912 building now known as the Rushmore Professional Building (housing law firms and other such organizations). The Main Post Office moved to its present site during the mid-1970s, from the west end of downtown to the east.

Old Rapid City, SD post office:


The present site fits with one's expectations for the design of a 'modern' Processing and Distribution Facility.


Flanking the MPO along a roughly straight eight-mile corridor are Rapid City's five CPUs. This framework is beneficial in one respect: there are five postal operations open on Saturdays and four on Sundays -- one until 11 p.m. each night -- in the area. Most Dakotas District operations -- including CPUs -- are very keen on learning and obeying rules and regulations, and I found each operation to be friendly and competent. From west to east, presenting the five CPUs of Rapid City:

Rapid City, SD: Sta. #6 (Family Thriftway Center CPU)


Rapid City, SD: Sta. #4 (Boyd's Drug West CPU)


Rapid City, SD: Sta. #7 (Medicap Pharmacy CPU)


Rapid City, SD: Sta. #5 (Boyd's Drug East CPU)


Rapid City, SD: Sta. #2 (Don's Valley Market CPU)


Until next time!

Valentine, Texas

It's February 14th, and we know what that means. We get to either discuss the joys of love, the lack thereof, or discuss some post office related to the name Valentine. I stand by my decision.

If you'd like to view the definition of the middle of nowhere, you need not look much further than Valentine, Texas. The town, according to its 'City Limits' sign, maintains a population of 217 people. Located in the state's southwest panhandle along U.S. 90, the town is closer to Mexico (25 miles from the Rio Grande) than from any neighboring town (the arts community of Marfa -- 35 miles -- or the I-10 motel stop of Van Horn -- 38 miles). In fact, these distances place Valentine far enough away from any other community that its post office must remain open at six hours a day according to USPS's POStPlan. By the new terminology it becomes a "Part-Time Post Office" (PTPO) that reports to the local postal District (in this case, Rio Grande). If the distance were less than 25 miles to either post office then Valentine's would have been reduced to a two-hour operation. In fact, the Valentine post office was threatened with closure under USPS's ill-fated Retail Access Optimization Initiative (RAOI) back in 2011.

Here's a satellite view of the situation:


Welcome to Valentine:


The most interesting facet of the landscape lies about halfway between Valentine and Marfa to the Southeast. Ten miles out a massive, round object protrudes from the horizon, one so unexpected that you wonder if you've teleported the 200 miles north to Roswell. As it turns out this is one of ten U.S.A.F. Tethered Aerostat Radar System sites along the southern borders of the United States. Located at sites from Yuma, AZ to southern Florida and Puerto Rico, these blimp-like objects rise and scan for aircraft and surface-level intrusions from abroad. Who knew?

Marfa TARS:


Beyond this (and an art installation just west of town known as Prada Marfa) the land is peppered with ranches. Train tracks parallel U.S. 90 and bisect Valentine. The landscape is flat though hills are visible in the distance. As we might say in urban areas, the sky is big.

Here's a view east of town:


I was pleased to find a beautiful stonework Public Library in Valentine. The building has been maintained beautifully (though, to be fair, it was dedicated in 2009) and even pays homage to the main branch of the New York Public Library with two lions out front!



You can read more about the Kay Johnson Public Library and its dedication here and here, respectively.

The Valentine post office was established Jan. 22, 1886. Here the post office is a big deal. Heck, the Valentine post office is big all over the place. The post office offers an annual pictorial cancellation with which senders the world request their Valentine's mail to be postmarked.

Valentine, TX post office:


Valentine's 2013 pictorial features two 'love birds' sitting on a ranch landscape fence. To order a cancel (whose requests must be received within 30 days), send your request and items to be postmarked to the address at right.