Monterey, CA

An unflattering postcard of the Monterey, California, post office, but the only one I’ve been able to find. The post office is on Hartnell Street, named for an Englishman who opened a school in Monterey in 1834.

You wouldn’t know it from this photo, but the building’s alcoves are graced by two tile murals depicting the Monterey landings of Sebastián Vizcaíno (1548-1624) and John D. Sloat (1781-1867).

Vizcaíno was a Spanish soldier, explorer and diplomat whose travels took him to the Americas, Philippines, and Japan. In 1602, he sailed up the California coast, exploring and naming Point Lobos, Carmel Valley and Monterey Bay.

In 1846, Sloat, an American naval officer, raised the American flag over the Monterey Customs House and proclaimed California a part of the United States.

The tiles are from the Gladding McBean tile company; an individual artist is not mentioned.

Alaskan Mail Run

I often marvel at what people will do to get their mail, and in this photo by B.B. Dobbs from Alaska’s Digital Archives we see Martin Victor “Sport” Smith, with his dogs and friends, bringing mail ashore from the S.S. Corwin on June 2, 1907. In this photo, Mr. Smith, and what a sport he must have been, is five miles out on the ice of the Bering Sea, apparently as close to the shore as the Corwin could come.

“It’s a fierce game, that carrying the mails in the winter,” he once observed. This “summer” run must have been a lark for him.

Lismore, NSW

When the people of Lismore, New South Wales, Australia, put in for a proper post office, they were rewarded with a crenelated battlement, surmounted by a clock tower, itself flanked by buttresses, the whole crowned with lacy ironwork, and capped by a spire. There were no arrows left in the architect’s quiver after this one.

Bay View, MI

I love it that someone left the hose out on the lawn, and the woman on the porch is looking at the photographer wondering if he will have the audacity to take her picture without her permission, and that the boy and girl in the shade are sitting with their dog, waiting for someone.

East Branch, NY

May he be romping with angels: the night clerk at the East Branch post office in New York’s Catskill mountains.

Winnebago, WI

A summer day in Winnebago, Wisconsin, when you could post a letter and pump gas in one stop.

Darwin, NT, Australia

The Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, post office after the Japanese air raid of February 19, 1942. Commencing at 9:58 a.m., with no warning, two waves of fighters and bombers – 242 in all – laid waste to the thinly defended port city.

One bomb hit the post office killing the postmaster and his family, and just outside, a bomb’s direct hit on a slit-trench killed six young women telegraphers taking shelter.

In all, ten postal employees died during the raid.

Newton, NJ

God bless the post office in Newton, New Jersey, for sharing space in the Opera House. What style!

Salamanca, NY

This post office in Salamanca, New York, still stands. Although most of Salamanca is on the Seneca reservation, a sovereign nation, the town still rates an outpost of the U.S. postal service.

Almonte, Ontario

The post office in Almonte, Ontario, perhaps the only town in Canada named for a Mexican general. The citizens of the town distrusted the United States, an antagonism that went back to the War of 1812, and since General Juan Almonte had fought in border skirmishes against the U.S., in 1856 they named the town in his honor and sent a message to their neighbors. Today, the town’s name is pronounced “AL-mont” but the General is not forgotten.

General Juan Almonte (1803-1869)