Meridian, MS

Meridian, Mississippi, a railroad center, was trashed by Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman in 1864, leveled by a catastrophic tornado in 1906, and, in 1964, it was the town to which civil rights workers James Cheney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman failed to return, after being kidnapped, murdered and buried by Klansmen. But in between disasters — 1907 to 1933 — the town was graced by this lovely Italianate post office with its balconied tower.

This card was posted in Meridian on November 10, 1907, and received two days later in Nashua, NH, with the message, “A very pretty town and beautiful weather warm as July.”

Last Mail Train to Clarksville, TN

There’s something irrepressibly chipper about the Clarksville, TN, post office; I’m thinking it’s the over the top roof-line. Thank heaven for the spirit of folly.

Key West, FL

The Key West Post Office was designed in far away Washington D.C. by one William Freret who included lots of fireplaces, until he received heated reminders of the building’s location. The hapless Freret’s original design also lacked bathrooms.

Posting in Saults Ste. Marie

I love the post office in Saults Ste. Marie, Ontario, for its stone foundation, its humble brick second and third stories, and its insouciant cupola. The city’s name comes from “Saults de Sainte-Marie,” archaic French for “Saint Mary’s Falls”, the rapids of St. Mary’s River that connect Lake Superior and Lake Huron. And I am especially pleased that the building survives to this day, and serves as the Saults Ste. Marie Museum.

Ojai, CA, Post Office Tower

One of my favorite postal images: the tower of the Ojai, California, post office. The tower owes its existence to two men. Edward Libbey, owner of Libbey Glass, first visited Ojai in 1908. He eventually had a home built, and persuaded the city that it needed a cohesive architectural vision, which he would supply. He hired San Diego architect Richard S. Requa (1881-1941), who designed a Spanish-style arcade that would enclose the shops on Ojai Avenue, and include a campanile — a free-standing bell tower — that drew its inspiration from the campanile of the cathedral in Havana, Cuba, and from the Havana Post Office. Libbey paid the tab for design and construction; the post office tower was built in 1916, and today, it is an Ojai landmark.

Requa’s inspiration: the cathedral in Havana, with its campanile…

… and the post office in Havana, circa 1920.

Home Post Office of Radar O’Reilly

This little fortress, in its oval frame, is the post office in Ottumwa, Iowa, the home of Radar O’Reilly of M*A*S*H fame.

Neatly Divided

The post office in Texarkana, Texas/Arkansas, unique in that it straddled the state line; you could mail a letter in two states at once. This building, sadly, was replaced by a faceless gray monolith which still straddles the state line, but with much less class.

Silver Bay, NY

The Silver Bay, N.Y., post office in a postcard from the Detroit Publishing Company, photograph taken in 1906, showing the post office to the right of The Store, and…

… the post office staff on the steps of that post office in a real photo postcard by J.S. Wooley, 1908.

And another view by J.S. Wooley

Ocean Grove, NJ

Like California’s Pacific Grove, New Jersey’s Ocean Grove began as a Methodist campground on the seashore. A decline in church attendance after World War I adversely affected the popularity of Ocean Grove — a dry town where the beach was closed on Sunday morning — and the lack of visitors and new construction had the effect of preserving its 19th century architecture. In 1975, Ocean Grove was designated an Historic District, with the greatest collection of Victorian architecture in the U.S. — a perfect spot for this post office, on a card mailed in 1913.

Log Cabin Post

Mailed from Inverness, California, on July 14, 1908, a postcard of the log cabin post office.