Washington State Postal History - KLICKITAT County - 1879 GOLDENDALE Territorial

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$2 shipping within the United States. $4 shipping to any other country. For total purchases of more than $100, we will insure and/or register at our expense. H A P P Y B I D D I N G WHAT'S A DPO! For those of you who are unfamiliar with the hobby of collecting DPO’s, let’s start by establishing that a DPO is a discontinued post office or maybe a dead post office -- simply a post office or post office name that is no longer functioning and/or in use. As far as I am concerned, the basic bible in the field is United States Post Offices, Volume I – The West as compiled by Richard W. Helbock. I suppose, however, that I should also mention that I live in the State of Washington and that my postal history collecting interests revolve around the Pacific Northwest. His business is entitled La Posta Publications and it is in Lake Oswego, Oregon, although Mr. Helbock has since found romance and as a result has moved to Australia.[Where he passed away of a heart attach on May 15, 2011]To learn more, you need to go to . Helbock has written and/or published quite a few specialized volumes and check lists pertaining to postal history. I also have in my philatelic library a copy of Post Offices of Oregon, Washington and Idaho – Illustrated by Dr. Robert Landis. My home counties are Skagit and Snohomish. I was born in Mount Vernon in 1944, lived with my grandparents near Conway until dad came home from WWII, then lived for 5 years or so at Bennettville just inside the Skagit County line north of Darrington, then moved to “the new place” at Oso, went to Oso Grade School, and then junior high school and high school in Arlington, then to the U of Dub, graduated, Army (Charlottesville, Virginia, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, Vietnam, Fort Lewis, and have been temporarily living in Lakewood south of Tacoma for almost 40 years. Anyway, let me use a few dpo examples from Snohomish and Skagit counties. The post office of Pueblo existed some distance up the North Fork of the Stillaguamish River in the period of 1894 to 1896. It carries a rarity factor of 7. Although I would like to have an example of its cancel for my collection, it might well be that none exists to be had. That post office was discontinued in its most basic sense in that the building isn’t there anymore; the post office was not moved or merged, the post office was just plain discontinued, and it might well be that no one really knows where it was. Many post offices just plain cease to exist. Fir on Fir Island, Skagit County, lost its raison d’etre when the South Fork of the Skagit was bridged and it became convenient to post mail at Conway. Baker lost its reason to exist when a bridge was put across the Baker River, making it easier to get over to Concrete. Engrained in the U.S. Constitution is the concept that Americans are to have ready access to postal services. As people arrived in the West, more and more post offices were established according to where the people seemed to be settling along with according to whoever was able to get themselves appointed postmaster, often operating out of a general store or someone’s kitchen. But as people filled the empty spaces AND as transportation improved, many of the post offices became unnecessary and redundant. First the railroad and then cars and roads made these changes possible. In my home Stillaguamish River Valley, I remember there was at one time a community Hazel. I remember as a small child watching the lumber mill at Hazel burn to the ground, causing that community to lose its will to live, but it had already lost its post office way before in 1927. The river has since taken most of the town site and is working on taking the main highway in and out of the valley. I grew up –at least became old enough to move out on my own – at a wide spot in the road named Oso a few miles down the Stilly from Pueblo. Oso is Spanish for “bear.” The bear part makes sense, for I occasionally saw bear on my dad’s property, but why Spanish is beyond me. If you lived in that community, you were typical... read more

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