in tracy campbell and they can give you some neat stories of something that has happened then and now so gonna can you tell us a little something about what has happened in the post office is well there's been a lot of changes course finish it has moved into a larger building than it started with there's been a quite a few moves i don't know exactly where the first one was located but i know the second one was in the house on the corner across from the country store beside the post office now the one that was built in the fifty's was a twenty by twenty it was a sears and roebuck building where you put it together in petitions and then when it was removed by then we moved into the larger building which is there now and many people were working at that time in th building in that building let's say there was a postmaster general carrier clark and a sub carrier so i'd say about for christmas time we would bring in a couple  and so after that was crowded you didn't have too much elbow room to move around with you know and of course they've building that they have now they've outgrown that one so the area has than it used to be your point of time whenever you use the same area was covered by one postal carrier is it true yes yes they covered the area clear over the whole area they're covering now neisha and hack at and over and they we even took this far and it's thomson ville i don't know what year they gave thompson vale to canon stark really was in the maybe oh early fifty's maybe forty nine fifty the carrier that was run in was just the one and he really had a large route and when he retired in the next fella took over and then it was divided up made like what they call an auxiliary and that was a to relieve the burden of the larger rotten original rot and it's to get the mail delivered faster because if he has too much then it doesn't get delivered too fast so it sets so that helps since i started when i started in the nation post office it was still the one route and the auxilary route so it's grown so much in the last few years that i've had to take two route cuts in the last couple years so now we're up to four or four carriers we have three regular routes and auxilary which is growing just is it's going to be a regular ride probably here within the next year or so you tell us any stories about when you where  one oh lots of things  i've had my car catch on fire there was during christmas time i noticed i smelled something really bad and i pulled into the peter's presbyterian church parking lot and i did try to put it out with the snow and then i had to run to the church and get the fire extinguisher and put it out in the fire trucks came and everything else and they lost my keys after that because astro and slow on it was quite mailboxes i think that's a rule that everybody put garbage in front of the mailbox because i guess they want the garbage man to know that's their garbage and when you're delivering out your own car it's hard of reaching the box little loan trying to reach over the garbage and everything you know i ran over my share of garbage cans probably in my sixteen years but getting stuck that's another fun thing and i didn't get stuck too many times the few times i had the neighbors it happens to a water pump goes on or something and you have to go either find another vehicle or find somebody that got a vehicle to take phoenicia route but that's been alleviated now because now we have the l v vehicles carriers and they are a lot nicer lot less wear and tear on your vehicle and your body and save me a lot of time even just just recently with the volume of mail  getting now it's taking me less time with that vehicle than it did with my old vehicle plus supplier souls i guess the biggest thing that i've noticed is the parcel business the post office we're use i've done that a few times to stopped and went back and i was delivering by dumb like you might say because it was dark god maybe you can tell us something leander mccormick started in venetian eight hundred eighty one and he was a might say a distant relative of mine the first woman postmaster was in one nine hundred twenty five her name was selma case bear and the women have progressed long i think the women's movement started not too long ago but it's been going on for quite a while and it's taken its toll on the hardships and the different things that's happened through the years you know it some women that they have their families and they have to give up their jobs because they have to raise their families and faith you have to be a dedicated postal worker because it does take a good bit of your time some jobs are you go to work and you leave it there and go home  postal people i don't think can do that because you have people to call you an evening and ask you questions or i forgot to tell you today i'm going away hold my mail tomorrow and you take the note and hope you take it to work with you tomorrow to remember to tell the people can choose got the message at home and some of them will just call not too many but some people come in and they're just mad you know just in general but everything you know but before they leave you try to get him calm down to leave in a good  attitude i guess you might say and most of the time you get him you talk to them and get their problems solved and they're pretty happy when they leave and it i enjoyed it i had thirty three years and i enjoyed it to meeting a lot of people that that seems to be the you have to like people you know to be able to socia prime work with the public because there was always the little kids coming in and their eyes would just be above the counter you know and give them lollipops and they would really love things like that and what really made it for the little kids to when they grew up to bring their their family in and you met their wife and it was very nice that they would think of you to bring their family and for you to meet them and  appreciated that that was really nice of them they would thank you while they're there visiting they would say well we've got about to the but i supposed to show you where i got my mail when i was a little kid and i really enjoyed it that it was a nice experience oh there was we know that leander mccormick served twice could you tell us how that happened well it seems though when i got down through the years it must  been a political position way back in those times he was the postmaster started in eight hundred eighty one and then a fellow by the name of frederick cooper got it in december of eight hundred eighty five and then there was another one to holland case bear took it in may of eighty six eight hundred eighty six and then leander mccormick was back again in may of eight hundred eighty nine and we wondered why he lost his position and then in eight years later he got it back again so there was political pull those days so it saves though that james  harrison the president at the time was friends of leander mccormick and he helped get his job back and we wondered why his son his last son he had he had like maybe old maybe eight children and the last boy he had he called him james benjamin harrison and even the other children didn't know why he had that name and till they figured it out one day he named his last son after the president of united states because he got his job back for him so he named his son after they were as rank politics there they were making politics back in the early eighteen hundred so it seems like it has gone on even now you know it they get they try to keep it out of politics i can't say that it's out i suppose some of it might be but they have exams now that you take and you work with the listings of the highest score thought that turns you know they get the preference for the point system no they had they had the regular legalizing marijuana lation size yes and now they're allowed to build your own to match your home or bird house or what whatever you want to use and try to can tell you about about the post offices and that and thank you all we are here on location for seeing your perspective on the subject of post offices in theaters timeship this is one of the locations where one of the post offices were and it used to be a post office and the general store and the reason they had the post office here was because of the railroad tracks being so close by they could get the mail to and from pittsburgh to finish we'll be back with more on this  could you be a puppy playmate or a kitty cobbler or bunny babysitter or a dog rock or do you love animals and care about the ones who are left homeless you can help keep all kinds of pets harpy warm comfortable clean and adoptable by giving just a few hours a week of your time to the humane society needed for legal help and financial advice for prague raising and serving on a board of directors so if you are concerned call the humane society and be a visionary volunteer little bit about your experience is it's nice to be with you here just to give you a little background maybe some historical background on the mcmurry postoffice in the early sixty's the residence of peter stanch a petition  then congressman tom morgan for a their own post office as it turned the post office was designated here as mcmurry p a but it was a branch office of the can is bird post office carrying the same zip code as can and ironic as it may seem even today thirty years later the presidents of peter's township are still seeking their own independent post office for identity purposes they were in where they would hold their four letter carriers one clerk and myself as the operational staff that post office we gave what we called at that time mounted services to all the residents to a portion of the residents of peter's township those people were had their mail delivered by vehicles furnished by the us postal service and all residents carried a name street name and a number for the residence and that was done by both the post office and by the community the community set the names of the streets the post office set the numbering system so that the got rid of the ru route that that's right previously it was severed by rule carriers from canada but when the classified branch was opened then it became what we called city delivery out of canada served by regular postal pittsburgh distribution center but in effect mcmurry office operated separately from canada when the mail came in like when they picked up the mail at the post office box and stuff like that  post offices throughout the country that system of since has been changed through automation of course and all mail now is is distributed through the management sectional center in pittsburgh because they use the much of the automated equipment mail what are some of your duties then as were some of your duties superintendent well at that time if i can recall i manage the office you you were not given the title as a postmaster but in essence you were the postmaster you were the manager of that office total responsible for the operation of the office and the funds of that office and gave the full service of a regular post office that any other post office would get well with your length of oh yes i recall at the time of my retirement i was an area manager for the postal service which encompassed three hundred eighty six post office and i had jurisdiction over going to chill she was one of my post masters and it's not post mccormick as the first postmaster the mail was transported given issue by the pittsburgh southern railroad as stated later and it was called to be in a rare a when the post office was established the town was called anderson the post office department knew that this name would cause confusion since there were other cities that shared that same name namely anderson tennessee and anderson pennsylvania the state abbreviations that were used at that time look too similar so the post power in eighteen fifty and that was whenever they used to deliver the mail with morse and by doing so it was quite different as it was today so now let's go back to see your perspective welcome back to see your perspective we are we have two other guests william wright known as wink right here in the stand and edgar robinson on the end there so thank you for coming this today and perhaps you gentlemen can give us a little history of some of the things that happened up at the post office and with mary when you you were working down at the dairy bar and one time there was a post mcnairy post office well when i was in the early days i tell you one story that's really really happened doesn't sound right but we had a big heavy truck of a member the numbers fifty nine eighty one in the head a low low gear in it and i come down tom so road and turn left on but easton's lumber in i was servicing the boxes and they kept getting higher and it rained for three days before that in the boxes kept getting higher and higher and i decided t and want to know why and i said i had not been down in a cricket just kept sliding away though he was sighted so i put it and left and put it in that heavy low low gear and got back on the road but i was hanging out the door i was ready to go i could see me male and everything else and usually another person with me in with you to me one tied in on the shelves ready for the clerks to put in pigeon holes in the air as they come around the other side and take it out for their own  well a carrier and what are some of your interesting experiences well first of all i would when reminded me of the vehicle fifty nine eighty one and i never got a chance to thank him for willing that truck to me because it was a left hand drive vehicle and if you can imagine delivering mail on the right side of the  truck each time you came to a box you had to slide over take it out a gear in ditch or mill and put it in the mailbox and i was glad of the change that was made after that when we went to the right hand drive trucks well it's just like with went in the nation were doing with their own cars then when they were delivering the mail yes but they had to reach over well they had an advantage they had a full seat all two to slide over all we only had one monday and then we went to the right hand drive which were much more convenient and was much less work and we were inside tired at the end of the day the other changes that we had they were constantly changing our system of there wasn't his original idea of the dumb just kidding of course but there was always constant changes in what were your hours then the stuff pretty early in the morning i don't remember the no i would yes i remember the hollywood when it was there had been quite a while we lived changes at the crossroads that this man what about the post office up there is a still the same as when they opened it up or had they done any changes or anything they have enlarged the the office they had to because in the the the amount of mail that was because peter's township has grown and of course you gentlemen very much for being here and it's very interesting to hear some of your stories and i'm sure you didn't relate them all so you have a lot of stories to tell like everybody does and therefore  we are now at the mcnairy dairy bar this was a location where one of the post offices which was the substation and where people were able to mail their packages and get stamps and be all right with the clerk now let's is the location we think of the peters creek post office it was only here for a very short while from december of eighteen thirty two to june of eighteen thirty three and then it was changed to finleyville if anybody has any information concerning this location or if this is the location please call nine four two zero one three six now back to seeing your perspective and thank you