GREENFIELD – The Greenfield post office at 207 N. State St. will likely soon have a new address.
What’s left in question is the fate of the 92-year-old building that has served as the city’s mail center since 1932.
Greenfield residents were first notified of the plan to relocate the post office through a postcard the U.S. Postal Service mailed to city addresses May 23, but the exact fate of the office is yet to be determined.
“We are still considering options, keeping in mind what would be best for the community and the Postal Service,” said Susan W. Wright, a communications specialist for the service.
Wright said the current 10,200-square foot post office has served Greenfield since 1932.
The Postal Service is seeking a larger location that’s roughly 12,800 square feet, with at least 104 parking spaces or 85,000 square feet of land.
The postcard shared that since the local post office is outgrowing its current location, the Postal Service is seeking a larger facility within three miles of the current location, which is two blocks north of the heart of downtown at State and Main streets.
“The relocation project will consist of procuring a suitable substitute location, as close as reasonably possible to the existing location,” the notice read. “Retail services will continue at the current post office until all necessary preparations are completed at the new location.”
The public was invited to share comments on the proposed move within 45 days of the mailing, a window which ended July 7.
As local residents await news of a possible new location, others ponder the future of the current building. Local historians have expressed interest in acquiring it to serve as the new home of the Hancock County Historical Society.
Longtime historian Brigette Cook Jones said the society has expressed interest in potentially transforming the building into the county’s historical museum.
The society’s historic items are currently stored and displayed within the Chapel in the Park Museum and the Old Log Jail Museum, two adjacent buildings in the southeast corner of Greenfield’s Riley Park.
Jones said the current museums — which house several thousand items ranging from ice age animal fossils, Native American projectile points, pioneer artifacts, Civil war memorabilia, Victorian era clothing and World War I and II items — are “bursting at the seams.”
BACK IN TIME
The advent of the city’s current post office was surrounded by fanfare in the early 1930s, said Jones.
She noted that Ora Myers, who was Postmaster at the time of the site selection, had a lot to do with establishing a new post office. He would eventually become mayor of Greenfield.
Myers petitioned Congress to build the new post office and was present at the cornerstone laying, which was done with a full Masonic Ceremony on Nov. 12, 1931.
The Regimental Band from Ft. Benjamin Harrison provided music that day, as a parade of school children made the half-mile walk from the Riley Home to the post office, where they were joined by the Masons.
It took just under a year to complete the stately one-story building, which was officially unveiled at an open house on Aug. 27, 1932.
According to an article in the Daily Reporter at the time, U.S. mail would start being delivered from the new office on Sept. 1 that year.
The post office was built at a cost of just over $52,300, said Jones, after the land was purchased for $8,250.
The original piece of ground was home to the John Ward Walker homestead, where the family home was demolished to make way for the new post office, which features steel framework, tall arched windows and walls made of Bedford limestone and brick. The limestone entrance and granite steps lead up to the lobby, which is finished in marble.
A wall of ornate, historic lock boxes still grace the lobby. Back in the ‘30s, a lock box holder had to make a deposit of 20 cents for their key, said Jones.
At the time, the Greenfield Post Office handled both city routes and rural routes that delivered mail outside of city limits. Originally those rural routes were done by horse and a wagon, said Jones, then eventually by bicycle and motorcycle.
Cars began making the routes by 1932, when each rural route was roughly 50 miles long, delivering 55,000 pieces of mail each month.
Jones said there were 23 employees when the current post office opened in 1932, but the city’s Postal Service dates back much further than that.
Greenfield’s first post office was established May 2, 1820, although the community was referred to as Brandywine, not Greenfield, at the time.
On May 15, 1829 the name of the local post office was changed to Hancock, but was officially changed to Greenfield in April 1833.
Mail originally came to Greenfield by horse, said Jones. It was later delivered by stagecoach, then train. By the time the current post office opened, the air mail service had been established.
Weir Cook — Hancock County’s native son and World War I ace pilot — was integral in getting Air Mail established out of Indianapolis, said Jones, who proudly owns one of the first Air Mail stamped envelopes that came out of the Greenfield post office.
As for the mail center’s future location, Wright said she would reach out to the Daily Reporter once a final decision has been made.
