The Beaver Falls post office building, built in 1897 at the corner of Seventh Avenue and Thirteenth Street, and replaced in 1938 by the present building.
Return to Milestones Vol. 6, No. 2
What's the zip code for Green Garden post office? How about Ethel's Landing? Or Seventy-six? If you find out, please write to me at Shafer's Pa. Or am I a little out of date?
All of these names were post offices in Beaver County at one time or another. In the latter part of the last century, nearly every village and crossroads had its own post office. Some of the names sound strange today, because in many cases, the post office name was different than the town or village.
And many of our present-day rural communities are known by their old post office name, which gradually replaced the original name of the village. This is what happened at Harshaville, in Hanover Township. Harshaville was the post office name in Hanover Village, but gradually, the village, too, came to be known as Harshaville.
Hanover Township is a good place to start, for the earliest post office in Beaver County was located at the village of Frankfort, in 1800. The name was changed to Frankfort Springs in 1840 after the once-famous mineral water spring (now in Raccoon Park) became a popular resort. In time, the resort had its own post office, called Mineral Springs. Other early post offices in Hanover Township include, Kendall, Poe, and Comettsburg.
The three post offices on record in Greene Township share the distinction of remaining open for business today! These include the third oldest post office in Beaver County, George Town, which was established in 1802 and is now in Georgetown Borough. The others are Hookstown and Shippingport, also no longer part of the township, but in boroughs of the same names.
In Raccoon Township, three post offices were located on or near present-day Route 18. These were Holt, McCleary and Service (at Mechanicsburg). In addition to these, Green Garden post office was located in the eastern corner of the township, along the road of the same name.
Independence Township had only two post offices, one at Independence Village called Seventy-six, and Bocktown Village was Duluth post office.
There were a scattering of post offices in early Hopewell Township. Ethel Landing P.O. served the village of Shannopin (present-day South Heights). New Scottsville P.O. was located in the village of the same name, while nearby, at another time, was the Zeller P.O. New Sheffield P.O. and Woodlawn P.O. were both busy places in their day, and are now both within Aliquippa. The infant borough of Aliquippa, too had its post office, in the section now called West Aliquippa. Still in service today is the Hall Farms branch office, successor to New Sheffield.
Potter and Center Townships are latecomers, having been formed since the golden era of the rural post office. In old Moon Township, however, Bellowsville P.O. was located along the river (in present-day Potter Township) and Shafer's P.O. (on Brodhead's Road) and Baker's Landing P.O. (Moon Run, south of Monaca) would have been in Center Township, had they survived. And then, of course, there was Water Cure, which was the post office in old Phillipsburg. Both names changed to Monaca in 1892.
The second post office in the county was Beaver Town, established in 1802. In 1829 it was shortened to Beaver, and except for the name change, it is the oldest post office still in existence. Old post marks show the existence of a branch office called Beaver Court House.
Other P.O.'s in neighboring communities were West Bridgewater, (in Bridgewater borough) and Mahan P.O. and Vanport P.O., in Vanport Township. Fallston had its own P.O. for awhile, but the only post office in Brighton Township called Brighton P.O. was in presentday Beaver Falls! Beaver Falls P.O. came along a little later.
Ohioville borough had its share of early post offices. Blackhawk, Esther (at Fairview), 0hioville (at the village) and Smith's Ferry (on the river) covered the township pretty well.
Glasgow, the little Sandy and Beaver Canal town, never had a P.O. of its own.
How much business did some of these early post offices do? A table of salaries paid to the postmasters in 1870 shows which stamp windows were the busy ones. The postmaster in New Brighton earned $1200 in 1870, while his counterpart at New Scottsville P.O. received only $5. In between were Beaver at $720, Water Cure at $160 and Seventy-six at $14, with some three dozen others. The pay scales at the rural offices were, as one would expect, generally lower than those in town. The post office was usually operated as a side line in a grocery store, or as in Phillipsburg in 1876, in a dry goods store.
One little village almost to the northern boundary of the county, and now all but disappeared, had four different post offices down through the years. Starting as a coal mining town, the first P.O. was Baker Bank. Then the village became known as Clinton, with a P.O. of the same name. This must have caused great confusion with Clinton P.O. in Allegheny County, so it was changed to Rock Point P.O. Now we find out what great influence the early postmasters had in their community. One of the later postmasters at Rock Point, possibly the last, was a man named Hoyt. A few years later, we find the name had changed to Hoytoale P.O.
A little to the west in Big Beaver Township, there was Summit Cut P.O., at the high point on the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago FIR main line (now Penn Central).
The early village of Greersburg never had a post office of its own, but the name disappeared because of postal problems. It seems that mail for Greersburg tended to end up in Greensburg (Westmoreland County). So, ten years after its founding, this little borough changed its name to Darlington, and then got a post office with the same name.
The northeastern corner of Beaver County had a variety of small post offices, now all but forgotten. Bellton P.O., Park Gate P.O., Kimberley P.O. and Caylor's Ferry P.O. were in North Sewickley Township, along with North Sewickley P.O.
Franklin Township had Frisco P.O., Celia P.O., Shiner P.O., Lillie P.O. (later changed to Lillyville) and Fombefl P.O. Barnsville P.O. was in Marion Township, at the entrance to present-day Brush Creek Park. Of these, only Fombell remains.
There was Brush Creek P.O. at Unionville, and post offices called Sunflower, Knob, Lovi and Park Quarries, all in New Sewickley Township. Economy Township residents received their mail at Wall Rose P.O., Brown's P.O. or Agnew P.O. (now Conway). The Harmony Society had their own P.O. at Economy, but in later years, there was another one in northern Harmony Township called Legionville P.O. (near the site of the encampment of Anthony Wayne's legions).
Completely obliterated and visible only on old post cards is the village of Boalsville, along the Junction stretch in Rochester Township. Once a thriving community with its own post office, it is nothing today but a railroad track and a four-lane highway. In all, I've listed some 90 different post offices in Beaver County (not counting minor variations on the name), and a few other possibilities that are yet to be confirmed as actual post offices.
The list doesn't really stop here, though, because many early residents who lived on the edge of the county received their mail from an out-of-county post office. Hopewell residents, for example, received their mail at Shousetown (now Glenwillard) or Moon P.O. in Allegheny County. Similarly, Blair, Va., Cove, Va., St. Clair, Ohio, and Madison, Ohio, are among the post office addresses of early Beaver Countians.
Most of the extinct post office names disappeared around the turn of the century, but a few have been deleted in recent years. Racine P.O. serving Homewood borough, and West Bridgewater P.O., in Bridgewater borough, were the last to go.
Today, we find some 20 post offices delivering mail in Beaver County, plus four others from out-of-county serving Beaver County areas.