Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Sept. 1949 – South Lorain Postal Station Opens

Sixty-four years ago this past Friday, Lorain was looking forward to the opening of its new South Lorain postal station on W. 28th Street. It was designed to help the overcrowded conditions at the main post office.

As The Lorain Journal of Sept. 14, 1949 (shown above) notes, the station was still awaiting the arrival of some of its equipment, and would not offer complete postal service to customers yet. But carriers were going to work out of the building beginning on Sept. 16, and it was expected to be full-service in time for the Christmas rush.

Charles H. Tope, a Lorain postal employee for 31 years (and a carrier in Lorain since 1918) was to be the superintendent of the facility.

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Fast-forward sixty years, and the U.S. Post Office is continuing to fight for its survival in this age of emails, texting, Amazon.com and the fact that most people don't write and mail letters any more. Making the Post Office put aside $8 billion each year towards retirees' health care benefits doesn't help its financial situation either.

Sadly, the South Lorain station eventually became a victim of the U.S. Post Office's downsizing efforts. It closed in early September 2011, despite an effort by local citizens and government to save it. Sheffield Lake's branch – the one that I patronized – was closed that same year (which I wrote about here). 
Today, the former South Lorain post office is home to Lorain Tool Enterprises.


4 comments:

Marc Herman said...

It's amazing how much news they could cram into their front pages!

Dan Brady said...

You're right about that, Marc! What a difference from today's Morning Journal, which usually has a huge photo on the front page, along with an article about some levy in Westlake or other minor news from Bay Village or Rocky River--with usually no mention of Lorain!

Bob Kovach said...

Sad how back then the Constitution had a very prominent role in our schools.Not so today,its almost a crime to mention it in school especially in major university's.The little article on that Journal page explains it so well.Why is it today its such a bad thing. I guess its not so hard to figure out sad to say.

Dan Brady said...

You're right, of course, Bob. It's sad how the Constitution is continually under attack these days - by the very government officials who are supposed to "preserve, protect and defend" it.

That Constitution article (along with a few others shown) is why I posted the whole front page this time (they're more interesting than the Post Office one)!