Anyone who’s mailed a real-life, honest-to-goodness snail-mail letter in Spur knows to find the current U.S. post office at 210 W. Harris St. (i.e., 4th St.), two blocks off of the main business corridor, Burlington Avenue.
But how many recall where the first, and other, post offices were located?
An exhibit at the Spur Dickens County Museum provides some helpful answers.
The first one was opened in 1909—right after the city’s founding— at 111 W. 5th St., according to the museum’s display notes alongside a row of vintage mailboxes. Norton A Baker, the note says, served as Spur’s first postmaster.
The exhibit reveals more: “In 1918 the post office was moved into a new brick building at 116 East Harris. Mrs. Lela Evans became postmistress and served from 1920 to 1928, when Mrs. Kate Senning took over the job.” Two other postmasters served in the 1930s.
In 1938, according to the exhibit, the post office was moved to 119 W. Harris St., and new equipment was installed. The facility moved again in 1945, to the old Nichols Sanitarium, and yet again, in 1950, to a new building at 512 Burlington Ave.
The current post office on West Harris was completed in 1978, so it marks 45 years of service to the city this year.
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