Hammond, Montana

In the Big Sky plains of southeastern Montana lie several post offices along a lonely artery: U.S. 212, which winds its way through hundreds of miles of rural landscape from the Little Bighorn Battlefield along I-90 through to Minneapolis, by way of Wyoming and the entire width of South Dakota. Along the 60-mile stretch of the road in Montana southeast of the town of Broadus, a county seat, lie three post offices: Boyes, Hammond, and Arzada. When I say post offices lie along the road I don't mean that you'll see towns; you may see three or four buildings along a road, one of which is a functioning post office. The speed limit doesn't even drop at these points. Blink and you will miss them.



This is not to say that these post offices are not worthwhile; au contraire, they serve ranchers living miles away along dirt back roads. This is why these post offices tend to be found at intersections of U.S. 212 with what would seem to be dusty trails to nowhere. Hammond's is found between Crow Creek Road and S Rd. Here's a map of the community:



Since there are no addresses in the community, USPS's Leased Facility Report states a rather unusual address for the post office: "S OF HIGHWAY 212". To be fair, this is actually the only structure on the south side of Highway 212 in Hammond. The post office was purpose-built (date unknown; missing from USPS Leased Facilities Report) on a 10,000-square-foot plot owned by a local landowner (address: a P.O. box) for the modest sum of $1,825 per year.

The Hammond and Boyes post offices are oddities: due to the fact that either a) their workload surpasses four hours a day or b) they happen to be far enough away from the nearest larger post office, each now rates as a six-hour facility under USPS's POStPlan. While thousands of post offices have had their hours reduced across the country, these two post office actually increased from four-hour-a-day to six-hour-a-day operations!

The design of the post office building itself is standard for a class of generic small post office buildings constructed several years back before the Big Sky District of USPS had been consolidated into the Dakotas District. Standard size, standard layout, standard colors, standard signage. Sadly, this means that the remote post offices in this corner of the country are not the most photogenic.



However, look across the street (i.e., to the north side of Highway 212) and you will see what I love to find: the former site of the post office, uninhabited but authentic through and through.



Beautiful.

Eureka! [Springs, Arkansas]

One of the most interesting towns I've had the pleasure of visiting was way off the beaten path. Located about an hour's drive east of Bentonville, Arkansas and an hour southwest of Branson, Missouri, Eureka Springs is a most unexpected surprise if you're just passing through. The town has a population of 2,000 but the cozy-yet-bustling Main Street will have you thinking the community is much larger.

The highlight of the community is its vibrant commercial district but a large attraction is the Thorncrown Chapel, which has been noted as extraordinary in various travel guides. There's also a railway museum!



I will be the first to admit that this place ain't too easy to navigate:



This is largely due to the fact that it is built on a unique swath of mountainous terrain, its roads winding around hills and cliffs, with some buildings having multiple entrances from different floors to different streets. All road intersections occur at bizarre oblique angles. The town was, of course, built around springs that had been heralded by its initial settlers as magical. The rumors had so spread that at one point during the late 19th century (according to Wikipedia, I couldn't find the census statistics) the city was Arkansas's second largest (with only Little Rock being bigger).

How this town was built I'm still amazed. Buildings were built on steep slopes, into hills, above and through ridiculously interesting rock formations... This is not at all unusual there:



And believe you me, Eureka Springs definitely earns its nickname of "The Stair-Step Town."



My favorite part of the city was Spring Street. No Mickey D's here; the street is flanked with enough stores of artisinal vendors to make a hipster from Brooklyn jealous.





Basin Spring Park is a unique venue with stunning exposed rock walls and artwork and sculptures around every corner.



Ah, yes, the post office! Eureka Springs's post office was established October 21, 1879 and has been housed at its current site for most of that time. The Eureka Springs post office is located a block off the Spring Street drag and was built in 1916 with federal Treasury Department funds. The stately building has old-style P.O. boxes. This said, renovations have been undertaken. Regardless, it's good to see that this building is still in service.








Until next time,
Evan

Wait, Where? Jersey Shore, PA

Traveling deep in the Appalachian Mountains along Interstate 80 in Pennsylvania you might be surprised to see the destination accessible by taking exit 192:



Yep, it's the Jersey Shore! Well, not the Snooki type. It's the town of Jersey Shore in rural Pennsylvania. Though interestingly enough, the name was just insulting to the Garden State 200 years ago as the TV show of the same name is to present-day dignity. Here's the situation (pun intended), courtesy http://www.usgennet.org/:

The first settler, Reuben Manning, ... was the uncle of Forster, who at that time owned and occupied Long Island, in the river opposite these surveys. They were both from Essex county, New Jersey, and from the part known at that day as the "Jersey Shore." As the settlement grow it came to be called "Jersey Shore," because Manning and Forster were Jerseymen. At first the name was applied in derision by the Irish settlers in Nippenose bottom, across the river. The place was named Waynesburg in 1805, but the title, "Jersey Shore," had obtained such notoriety that it prevailed, and when the act incorporating the borough was passed it distinctly said that the place "shall be called and styled the borough of Jersey Shore." That legalized it, and by that title it has been known to the present day.

Jersey Shore has had a post office since 1805. Today the community (pop. 4,300) has a pleasant Main Street. This article on nj.com describes more of the daily life around town.

The current post office resides downtown and has been in service since 1960. Here is the Jersey Shore post office in 2012:



A modern mural depicting some historic buildings in the community is painted at one end of the lobby:



It was interesting to research the meaning of the central inscription: "The Land of the Tiadaghton Elm." As the Williamsport Sun-Gazette explains: "The Tiadaghton Elm Ceremony is celebrated because the Fair Play Men, who were settlers that moved out of the Philadelphia area to the Jersey Shore area, decided they wanted to be free from Britain's rule and signed their own Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, without knowledge that the Continental Congress was creating its own Declaration of Independence." You can find out more about the Fair Play MEn settlers here. 'Til next time!

4, 3, 2, 1... Counting Down the Number of Post Offices in Titusville, Florida

Browsing the Post Mark Collectors Club (PMCC)'s vast trove of post office photos can sometimes lead to some interesting discoveries. This realization came after reviewing a recently uploaded photograph contributed by GP friend Steve Bahnsen, who recently explored dozens of post offices in Florida and who noted that one of my photos from the region was mislabeled. Back in 2009 I took I-95 from New York City to south Florida, stopping at two post offices in Titusville along the way. Why Titusville? Memories of Space Camp, of course! Titusville is located right by Cape Canaveral on Florida's eastern shore. Well clearly it's postmark time! But disappointingly, three of Titusville's post offices have been closed in recent years.

A post office in the community had been established in 1859 by the name of Sand Point. The name stuck until the community was redesignated Titusville, although Titusville's website informs us that the town could have been differently renamed:

Today's "Titusville" might have been known as "Riceville" except for the craftiness of Col. Titus who won a challenge match of dominoes against Capt. Clark Rice to determine which player got to rename the town. Thus the outcome of a domino game resulted in Sand Point becoming Titusville, Florida in 1873.

What struck me about the PMCC's collection of post offices in Titusville is that it shows us just how much USPS's footprint can evolve (or disappear) from a community over time. In this case the PMCC has images of four post offices in Titusville over the past 20 years, though now only one is still in existence. The main post office remains but the three stations, including the two I visited in 2009, have since closed. And that's a shame for a growing community of 44,000 that encompasses 30 square miles and stretches more than 10 miles from north to south. Presented are the PMCC's photos as well as more recent Google Street Views of two of the discontinued sites. And, as always, here's a map!



Titusville, FL: Main Post Office, 2015; courtesy S. Bahnsen.


Located at 2503 S Washington Ave., Titusville's Main Post Office is located right along the Indian River, with its parking lot bordering the body of water.

Titusville, FL: Astronaut Trail Station post office, 2003; courtesy J. Gallagher. Discontinued.


Address: 5 Main St. Titusville's Astronaut Trail Station is located in the heart of the original downtown Titusville, also rather near the Indian River (and two miles north of the Main Post Office). Google Street View confirms that this post office closed by 2011. Imagery shows the former post office operating as a real estate office. A banner on the front of the building was advertising deals on foreclosed properties.



(FYI: Google Street View imagery for this site dates back to 2007, if someone would be interested in deciphering some of the project's very grainy early images.)

Titusville, FL: Indian River Station post office, 2009. Discontinued.


Address: 686 Cheney Hwy. Located a 3.1-mile drive from the Main Post Office, Google shows this pink-façade building in a shopping plaza vacant in May 2015.



Titusville, FL: Titusville Station post office, 2009. Discontinued.


Address: 1538 Harrison St. Located in another shopping plaza, Street View shows this post office operational in 2011. This was the closest station to the Main Post Office (a distance of 1.2 miles).

Reading All About It—Post Office Returns to Kansas Town After Four Years

(Updated Sept. 12, 2015: Added a new photo, modest update, and link to image of destroyed post office from 2011.)

Four years ago the 200-plus-person community of Reading, Kansas was devastated. On May 21, 2011, a tornado struck the community, killing one, flattening dozens of homes, and taking with it most of the village's business district, including the post office. (An image of the aftermath, taken by Jim Saueressig, can be found here.) USPS operations in Reading were immediately suspended; worse, the cessation of services was unlikely to be purely temporary. Some veteran readers of this blog might recall that the Postal Service was considering the closure of 3,700 [mostly rural] post offices, and Reading faced the outright discontinuance of its post office.

Reading is located in Lyon County, Kansas, about an hour's drive south-southwest of Topeka and 25 minutes northeast of Emporia. Here's a map. Note not only the location of Reading but also that of Lebo. Lebo is the site of the nearest post office to Reading.



Reading's postal operations had been relocated to Lebo after the tornado, and to reach it Reading residents had to undertake a 26-mile, 40-minute round-trip drive. At the end of 2011 the change was likely to be permanent. Imagine needing to take to the road for nearly an hour to purchase some stamps or access your mail! Reading residents had the option of picking up their mail at P.O. Boxes in Lebo or installing their own mailboxes to receive mail delivery service by rural carrier. (Note: Reading's rural carriers were also moved to, and continue to operate from, Lebo.)

Topeka's Capital-Journal newspaper has been covering the story for four years, and by mid-2011 the story was bleak. The town's post office had been in operation since the community's founding in 1870, and the story was likely to end right there. The tornado took with it two rich pieces of Reading's heritage: the post office and the historic 1915 building that had most recently housed it. Here is a photo of the Reading post office by John Gallagher taken in 2001, and part of the PMCC's massive Online Post Office Photo Collection:



Residents of Reading refused to give up their fight to save the post office, and in Sept. 2011 the Capital-Journal reported that the USPS's formal discontinuance survey of the Reading post office had been suspended, "due to the unwavering efforts of Sen. Jerry Moran and Sen. Pat Roberts, along with all of the other folks who have written, called and emailed" in their efforts to save the Reading post office.

After some (presumably) bureaucratic stagnation the Capital-Journal reported in 2014 that Postal Service officially stated its intention to reopen the post office in Reading. A new, small site (merely 700 square feet in area) was sought at which to open a new postal facility.

The decision was made to site the new post office at the community's old town hall. The building is located just across the street from the former post office building, which has since been demolished. A 2009 Google Street View photo shows the two facilities, both located along 1st Street; in the view shown below the former post office (1915 building) can be seen at the left while the then-future site of the post office can be seen across the street (at right).



The results of the efforts on behalf of both the community and the USPS have since borne fruit: the new Reading post office reopened in June at the old town hall. According to the (who else?) Capital-Journal "a USPS construction crew has renovated the building, installing new heating and air-conditioning systems, upgrading the bathroom to meet USPS standards and erecting a new flag pole and lighted post office sign." The improvements at the front of the building also include the addition of new steps, handicapped-accessible ramp, and attendant railings. The building has been freshly painted in an elegant blue-and-white scheme that accentuates the building's windows and door; they reflect the Sonic Eagle sign above the door. Even the aforementioned railings fit the color scheme! During the first month or two of operation the location's primary downside was the lack of signage identifying the actual name of the community. Demonstrated by the first photo below, it appeared that once again a community's local identity was superseded by the Postal Service's branding initiatives. (It's a trend the author does not care for at all.) In that sense, while the building is clean and beautiful, its standardized design had been entirely devoid of any character that would actually make the new post office the community's own.

Our friend Steve Bahnsen drove out to Reading to see the new post office for himself. This photo was taken in July. Steve reports that the post office reopened Monday, June 29, 2015.



(Update, 9/12/15:) Jordan McAlister, a road trip warrior from the Midwest and friend of GP, visited the Reading P.O. on Sept. 7 after reading this very article, and his photo shows the new stenciled signage in the post office's front window. It's in a rather odd font, but at least it's authentic! Jordan's original photo can be found here.


The new post office is located at 413 1st Street. USPS's Locations tool states that the hours for the post office are 9:30 to 1:30 M-F with two morning hours (9:30 to 11:30) on Saturdays. The facility is accessible 24 hours a day so that residents can access their P.O. Box mail any time they choose. The post office is a RMPO (Remotely-Managed Post Office) as per POStPlan.