The Post Office

By Mary Leak

Post offices are in most towns, and are a surer way to determine the abandonment of a city when looking through history. If a post office closes, it’s likely due to the town being abandoned, closed, or the population falling so low that the town can no longer justify having a post office. The Thurber post office was opened in 1889, allowing for the families that lived there to receive their mail closer than the neighboring towns of Mingus and Gordon. The post office was a small wooden building before being moved to the upstairs of the hardware store. It was a place to mail money back home for many miners from other countries, send letters to relatives for those that moved to the town, and pick up letters for those who were eagerly awaiting to hear news from their friends in other places.

The Thurber Post Office was one of the factors that led to Col. Robert D. Hunter’s fence around Thurber to be removed. The miners’ strike was accompanied by a suit claiming the fence was an obstruction to the post and the residents’ ability to get their mail. The case that followed ruled that the fence was, in fact, an obstruction, and it was taken down not long after. The residents of Thurber then had the ability to move more freely, and they celebrated the removal, all thanks to the post office.

Thurber’s post office was one of the last buildings to remain in use in the town. Its official closing was what signified the town was abandoned for good. Residents were notified that the town was closing and told they were able to buy their homes and move them if they so wished. The post office building was likely torn down and sold as scrap afterwards. The tearing down of the post office was a symbolic ending to the town’s lifetime; another plot of land returned as best as it could to how it had once existed.

The last letter from the post office was from the man who worked there to his wife and daughter. He wrote about how the post office is now closed and his job is now finished; he worked for the post office for a long time to be able to provide for their family and all that they had. It was sent through the post office in Thurber when it closed in 1936. Today, post offices remain a way for people to stay connected and to provide. Thurber’s office was just one of the many that once sent letters like its final one throughout the world.