Dorchester, Dorset, UK

The post office in Dorchester, shown to the left in this postcard, still stands today. It is pictured here, at about 2:40 in the afternoon, across the way from Sir Robert Napier’s almshouse; Napier died in 1615, but not before doing some good.

Plymouth, VT

This small town post office in Vermont received its mail, and dogs apparently, by automobile. Famed as the birthplace and final resting place of Calvin Coolidge, the 30th president of the United States.

Ellsworth, ME

I do not know if this post office in Ellsworth, Maine, survived the Great Flood of 1923 or the Great Fire of 1933, but I am grateful that this view of it survived at all. What a delight.

East Rockaway, NY

Not every post office must be a fortress. This one in East Rockaway, on the south shore of Long Island, New York, looks positively inviting.

Invercargill, NZ

This beauty in Invercargill, New Zealand, shown circa 1908, was replaced by a box which was then turned into a hotel. But we have these images to console ourselves. And you have to love the gazebo out front; what a nice touch.

Wellington, NZ

The General Post Office in Wellington, capital city of New Zealand, after a fire in 1887, in the course of which all its records were lost. Photo by F.J. Halse of Wadestown, N.Z., originally published in Louis E. Ward’s Early Wellington, Whitecombe & Tombs Ltd, 1928.

Haverhill, MA

Haverhill, Massachusetts, on the Merrimack River, was a prosperous mill town with some lovely architecture. Notably, it also served as the inspiration for the Archie comics and was the home of Rob Zombie.

Duluth, MN

With its handsome square tower, the hillside Duluth, Minnesota, post office would not be out of place on a college campus.

Yellowstone, WY

In the 1930’s, a primitive elk horn sculpture graced the lawn in front of the U.S. post office at the Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. Park rangers had gathered the horns and built the 12-foot sculpture as a tribute to the elk. (Elk, by the way, continue to graze on the lawn of the Yellowstone post office in the present day.) Shown below, a proud park ranger directs our eyes to the top of the sculpture in a photo from the June 1935 issue of Popular Mechanics.

Paducah, KY

Behold the Paducah, Kentucky, post office in 1883, with its lofty, open cupola on top, a vantage point that surely gave one a sweeping view of this town at the confluence of the Tennessee and Ohio Rivers.