Happy Birthday, Lorain – Part 4

Here’s another fun page from that 1924 Jubilee edition of the Lorain Journal. This page features articles about many of Lorain’s civil servants, including policemen, firemen and postal carriers.

The article about Lorain’s oldest mail carrier – Charles Rose – is interesting, so I’ve transcribed it below.

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LORAIN’S OLDEST MAIL CARRIER
DESCRIBES HIS WORK LONG AGO
No Delivery by U. S. Until
He and Two Others Were Appointed

CHARLES ROSE, 129 W. 21st-st. is the only one of Lorain’s first three mailmen still on the job here for Uncle Sam.

And he confesses that the sole reason for being the oldest man in point of service in the postoffice is because he “didn’t know any better.”

It was on Nov. 20, 1895, that Rose began packing a sack full of a little bit of everything on his back. Two other regular postmen, George V. Wright and Walter Beecher, were also appointed at the same time. They left the Lorain postoffice years ago.

Stood It 15 Years
And Rose could not stand to tramp the boardwalks and muddy streets of the then “two-horse-car-town” for more than 15 years.

Then he asked to be transferred, and since has been in the registry department. His first start as a mailman earned for him a salary of $600 a year.

He is a jolly little man, just the kind that makes a good husband and father.

He is 63, and has three daughters and one son.

In the olden days, when Rose was on the street, his duty was to deliver to everyone who lived south of the Nickel Plate tracks as far as South Lorain. Another man “covered” that section. The third man delivered for everybody north of the railroad.

Growth is Shown
“The postoffice, which was just one small room, was located at Broadway and 6th-st.” said Rose. “There were just seven employes. Now we are in a $200,000 building and we have 60 employees. Before we three were appointed as mail carriers the merchants had to hire someone to deliver their mail.”

Rose believes that the world is not so bad as some paint it.

“If they are used right and given a fair split on everything, the public is all right. All that is necessary is to go half way,” he said.

The accompanying picture was taken when Rose was still “on the street."