If you go
What: Collinsville Post Office 175th anniversary celebration
When: 1 p.m. Saturday, March 26
Where: Milford Twp. Community Center
Guest speaker Historian Thomas Stander, “Old Post Offices”
Special anniversary cancellation stamp will be unveiled
Refreshments will be served after the program
MILFORD TWP. — One of the first rural free delivery post offices in the nation now struggles to remain open even as it celebrates its 175th anniversary.
According to local historian Marna Evans, the Collinsville Post Office opened in 1836 and was part of an 1896 experiment to establish the Rural Free Delivery system to remote parts of the U.S.
“West Virginia beat us by two weeks,” Evans said.
And still, Evans said, the Collinsville Post Office remains an integral part of the community as every resident comes in every day to pick up their mail from one of the 110 boxes. All R.F.D. traffic is now managed by the Hamilton Post Office.
“It’s the heart of the community, the same as a church or a school,” Evans said. “And when a school, church, post office or even a grocery shuts down in a small community, it negatively affects the social networking that is so important to that community’s well-being.”
The Collinsville Post Office came close to being shut down three years ago when long-time Postmaster Bob Barrett retired.
The community, however, rallied to allow his part-time assistant, Lynne Ratliff, who filled in for Barrett on Saturdays and sick days, to take over the operation.
“They tried to say there was nobody here to run it,” said life-long Collinsville resident Karen Taylor. “But I get a lot of medicine in the mail and I don’t like it being left out in a mailbox.”
So with petitions, phone calls and a general show of solidarity, the post office remained open, and Ratliff is still there to greet everyone.
“It’s not a job,” she said. “I don’t go to work, I come in to see my family, and when one doesn’t come in, you know there’s something wrong.”
The post office, which is located at one end of a duplex on Huston Road, is so entwined with the life of Collinsville that people know they can even get non-Postal messages to each other when there’s an emergency.
One day last week, Ratliff noticed that a certain resident, whom she knew hadn’t been feeling well, hadn’t come in to pick up his mail. He finally called to tell her that he was in the hospital and asked if she could contact a friend of his to take care of his dog.
She did.
Except for the steady flow of visitors, mostly in the early morning and right after lunch, Ratliff said, it’s pretty quiet in Collinsville, and people from outside the village will come there to buy stamps and send packages, especially at Christmastime when the bigger post offices are packed with patrons.
“Here, you’ve got no lines,” Ratliff said, “plus you get free entertainment, though I won’t sing for anyone. That (will) just run them off.”
The Collinsville Post Office will celebrate its 175th anniversary March 26 with a reception at the Milford Twp. Community Center, which is right across the street.
Butler County historian Thomas Stander will present a talk on “Old Post Offices,” and several local dignitaries and politicians will be on hand to celebrate. Refreshments will be served after the program, and a special cancellation stamp will be introduced.
Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2188 or rjones@coxohio.com.
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