COLLINSVILLE, OH – In 1836, the U.S. Postal Service established its first Post Office in Collinsville, where mail was delivered to the unit by Railway Post Office. Since then, the office has undergone many changes – it’s relocated twice and has been served by 21 Postmasters.
On Saturday, March 26, history will be remembered when Officer in Charge Lynne Ratliff, Manager of Post Office Operations Walt Mace and State Representative Timothy Derikson celebrate the office’s 175th anniversary.
“It’s hard to believe we’ve been around for 175 years,” said Ratliff, a 13-year veteran of the Postal Service. “Customers have told me we were one of the test sites for rural route delivery, so this was how home delivery actually got started.”
Historian Thomas F. Stander alerted postal officials to the impending date. “I have an extensive collection of postal history from Butler County so naturally as part of that I know when Post Offices around here were established,” he said.
“In 1900, Butler County had 45 Post Offices, but today, only 15 exist,” he added. “Hamilton and Middletown are the two oldest, but this one is up there – 175 years is an important milestone.”
Customers are invited to stop by the Post Office between 8:30 a.m. and noon for refreshments. At 1 p.m., a special celebration will be held at Milford Township Community Center, 5113 Huston Road in Collinsville.
To mark the occasion, the office also will offer a special cancellation – a sketch of a horse buggy drawn by Ratliff’s son, Justyn. Mail order requests for the special cancellations will be available for 30 days beginning March 26. Customers should allow at least a 2-inch by 4-inch space in the stamp area for the postmark and have postage applied to cards or letters before mailing them — inside another envelope — to the Post Office.
Send mail order requests to: Postmaster, 175th Anniversary Station, 5012 Huston Road, Collinsville, OH 45004-5000.
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A self-supporting government enterprise, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation, 150 million residences, businesses and Post Office Boxes. The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses, and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations. With 32,000 retail locations and the most frequently visited website in the federal government, usps.com, the Postal Service has annual revenue of more than $67 billion and delivers nearly 40 percent of the world’s mail. If it were a private sector company, the U.S. Postal Service would rank 29th in the 2010 Fortune 500. Black Enterprise and Hispanic Business magazines ranked the Postal Service as a leader in workforce diversity. The Postal Service has been named the Most Trusted Government Agency six consecutive years and the sixth Most Trusted Business in the nation by the Ponemon Institute.
