Country Store Post Offices

In the early days of America, rural country stores often served as the community post office. It made sense, because eveyone on the community came to "the store" one or more times a week for supplies, social interaction, and local news. The post master and the store owner were one and the same. Sorting mail took all of a few minutes since most communities were very small. The photo shows the boxes for local people lined up by alphabetical order. Some people could not read at all, some were immigrants from other countries and could not read English, and some could read just enough to get by. It was not uncommon for the post master to read your letters for you if they were in English. Anyone getting a "package" was a super star. Getting a
letter was one thing.......but a package, was a community event. Junk mail did not exist because postage was much too high for such extravagance. Yes, the old post office and country store played a signigicant part of American history. Gone, but not forgotten.