Post Office

the POST OFFICE

Photo 202. Circa 1893. The Post Office was on the far left.

Photo 202 excerpt showing Post Office on south side of bank.

1856 - the 1st postmaster was appointed

A 1969 program for the dedication of a new post office building gives specific appointment dates for each postmaster, beginning with the appointment of John Fleming on December 9, 1856. Scroll to the bottom of this page for the program.

Chauncey Norris was postmaster from 1869 to 1876, according to that program. That same program cites the location of the post office as probably the Norris lot at the northeast corner of the Square. This building was torn down and a two-story brick home built, which still stands. The Norris descendants, based on a noted family story and the age of the participants, believe the brick home was built in about 1877.

Photo 6583, this copy shared by Norris descendant Betty Ann Wilkins. The annotation of the date is hers.

1882

1883

1883 Post Office schedule. "B & M" was the Baltimore & Missouri Railroad, which was succeeded by the CB&Q and then the Burlington.

1893

Someone did NOT like the postmaster in 1893, the year this building was built. Reportedly, at a Decoration Day Ceremony, the speaker slandered Grover Cleveleland, saying that Cleveland was a beer guzzler and while "we" were down south wipping the rebels, Cleveland was in Buffalo, drinking beer. The postmaster cheered.

Bill Vondrasek wrote a history of the post office in 1966 and named the postmasters, one being Scott Linsley. Same fellow, I presume, as the W. S. Lindsley cited in this article:

An interesting biographical note about Grover Cleveland

1901 to 1904

Rural Routes 1 and 2 began in 1901, and Rural Route 3 in 1904. Art Longwell, on Rural Route 3, reportedly used a motorcycle for carrying the mail when the weather was good.

byron wilcox, table rock's first mail carrier, assigned to rural route #1

art longwell, our 1st mail carrier on rural route 3

Photo 648. The first rural mail carrier, Byron Wilcox. He was a Civil War veteran.

james talbot, our 1st carrier on rural route 3

Detail from Photo 163, of a band, When a 3rd rural route was created, Art Longwell became the third rural carrier here ever. He graduated from Table Rock. He sometimes delivered mail with is motorcycle.

the nineteen teens

December 22, 1916

Photo 186. Frank Taylor edited the Argus from 1887 to 1934 --except for four years that he decided to be postmaster, about 1913 - 1917

November 5, 1917

1919

circa 1930s

lori vrtiska seibl

Another story dad told me recently......there was a man who delivered newspapers via airplane! He would roll them up real tight and drop them out a hole in the floor of the airplane at rural homesteads in the area. My grandma received her paper that way near Johnson. Sometimes the newspapers landed close to the house; other times they were harder to find when they landed in bushes and on roofs. Dad remembered that one newspaper went straight down a chimney! Some folks had their dogs trained to retrieve the paper wherever it landed.
Maybe others remember this?

Floyd Vrtiska, Lori's dad

theresa dunekacke

I don't remember it at all cuz I grew up over at Burchard on a farm but, I do know who it probably was, Junior Erismans Dad, who lived north of Humboldt. Junior talked about it & it was interesting. I believe he said he helped his dad wrap up the newspapers so he could throw them out of the plane. His name was Claude Erisman.

I also did Private Nursing for people around rural Auburn that would talk about Claude Erisman that would drop their newspaper from the plane especially, the Sunday paper comes to mind.

lori vrtiska seibl

Yep - I talked to dad and he said that was who it was!

circa 1940s

Photo 4032, the post office circa 1940s, shared by Judy Aylor

1950s

Postmaster Bill Vondrasek on a Booster trip around to the other little towns to promote Table Rock's Free Festival.

December 22, 1955

1960s

Edward Tomek became postmaster in 1964. Here's a photo that Rudy Senft took to go with a story about it.

The old post office counter line, now located in the Pioneer Museum. Retired postmaster Bill Vondrasek donated it. He said that in the old days, the counter line had to be bought by the postmaster. Toward the end of his term as postmaster, the Post Office Department finally bought their own. So when the Historical Society was formed in 1965, he donated his counterline for all to see.