The Chehalis Post Office is a federal post office in Chehalis, Washington. The Georgian Revival building has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) since 1991. The site has been declared a historic building by the Chehalis Historic Preservation Commission.
The post office is the only federal building in the city and was completed and dedicated in 1934. The Chehalis MPO, as it is listed in the NRHP form, was the last post office constructed in Chehalis. The build ended a stretch of perhaps nine different postal locations in the community. The first office was established in 1858 at the homestead of Schuyler and Elizabeth Saunders, the founding family of what later became Chehalis.
The brick building was constructed for $97,400 during the Great Depression by the Works Progress Administration. Two stories tall, the structure was one of the last federal Beaux-Arts-style buildings erected and an example of 1930s architecture used by the United States government. The exterior contains several features of note, including numerous semi-circular windows, dormers, a front pediment entrance, as well as various terra cotta designs and motifs. Materials, which included sandstone, were mostly procured in the Pacific Northwest.
The interior was built with modern amenities of the time and many features, including flooring and millwork, remain in the present day. The first floor hosts the post office's public duties, and the building contains a basement, mezzanine, and a second floor used for office space. Outside of natural upgrades and maintenance, the Chehalis Post Office is considered to remain in a mostly unaltered state.
Located in between two other NRHP-listed sites, the Chehalis Downtown Historic District and the Lewis County Courthouse, the post office serves as a central hub for local mail deliveries and rural routes expanding across Lewis County. The Chehalis Post Office reached first class status in 1937 and mail service has operated continuously in the city since September 1870.
History
Early post offices The first post office in Chehalis was established in the log home of the city's founding family, Schuyler and Elizabeth Saunders, on May 8, 1858 and was located on Main Street. The town was known as Saundersville at the time, credited after Schuyler, although Elizabeth was recognized as the first postmaster in the community that came to be known as Chehalis. The post office, having moved to the corner of Chehalis Avenue and North Street during its brief existence, was discontinued on December 7, 1859. A new post office, located at the Madsen corner, was renewed on January 10, 1861, lasting until September 29, 1865, when the postmasters left Chehalis to begin a district on the Klickitat prairie.
The town's post office was reestablished on August 7, 1867, under postmaster Mary M. McFadden, wife of pioneer, Obadiah B. McFadden. Mary oversaw operations in their home, the O. B. McFadden House, also an NRHP-listed site and the oldest residence in the city. Discontinued again on January 31, 1870, Obadiah became the new postmaster when he restarted the office later in the year on September 23; the Chehalis post office system has been in continuous, uninterrupted service since.
Officially known as Saunders Prairie at the time, McFadden changed the community's name to Chehalis where it was officially adopted by residents on January 5, 1874, and recognized by the state legislature on November 5, 1879. The reopened post office was a block west of the present-day Lewis County Courthouse. The first official "Chehalis" postmaster was Civil War veteran, Captain John T. Newland. The new office was moved in November 1875 to a store owned by George Hogue at the intersection of Prindle and State streets. In a January 1893 announcement, the Chehalis post office was designated as an international money order post office, able to offer and transact international money orders under the Universal Postal Union.
Under the era of Postmaster Dan W. Bush, the post office was relocated officially in September 1908 to a building on Market Street owned by the Bush brothers; the post office signed a 10-year lease. The move to a larger building was necessitated by the postal demands, and subsequent increases in mail route activity, of the growing city. In October 1917, Chehalis was made the postal center in Lewis County where 48 other post offices, excluding Centralia, requested supplies and delivered monthly postal reports.
The post office moved once again in late-November 1919 to a more modern space also located in another Bush brothers-owned building. The following May, the office received their first electric stamping machine, a significant upgrade at the time.
The post office relocated a final time in December 1929 to a slightly smaller space in the Zopolos Block in the northern section of downtown. Signed to a 10-year lease, the rental agreement agreed to dissolve once the new federal post office building was completed.
Chehalis Post Office
The beginnings of a federal Chehalis Post Office, also known via the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) listing as the Chehalis MPO, was initiated by request from Washington state congressman, William Wallace McCredie, during the deliberations of the Act of June 25, 1910, a federal public buildings initiative. Funding of $95,000 was issued by the United States House of Representatives in February 1929 and finally granted at $150,000 in late-February 1931. The large appropriation for a small city, such as Chehalis at the time, was due to existing agreements during the several long-term attempts of a nationwide federal post office construction project. Previous pacts included a large postal facility footprint and a growing need to help offset unemployment in the community due to the Great Depression.
The location, at the intersection of Cascade Avenue and Center Street, and the architectural Colonial style, were announced as finalized by October 1932; the original plans were for the building to be one-story with an attic. The building was designed by James A. Wetmore and construction was undertaken by the Works Progress Administration. The finished cost of the project was reported as $97,400, approximately $100 under budget. The courthouse was dedicated on January 10, 1934. The event subsequently honored the 60th anniversary of the city's official 1874 Chehalis post office and postal employees from Centralia were invited.
Based on the Adjusted Compensation Payment Act, the Chehalis MPO was certified as a headquarters in June 1936 to handle the distribution of funds from veterans wishing to surrender their World War I bonus bonds.
Parking access to the post office was considered to have the most problematic parking of federal postal facilities between Portland and Seattle. A 5-minute parking strip was enlarged in 1952 allowing more time and space for mail trucks, which usually delivered mail via the front door due to difficulties in entering the rear loading dock. A plan to widen Cascade Avenue to provide better parking and access to the post office was withdrawn in September 1953 after local neighborhood opposition.
Chehalis received the zip code of 98532 in an announcement in June 1963 during the beginning rollout of the ZIP Code system. The post office during the 1960s was once home to a local IRS tax office that was opened to the public during tax season.
Postal services history
Awards The Chehalis MPO was given an Award of Merit by the United States Postal Service in 1970 in recognition for several ideas the Chehalis staff suggested for postal delivery improvements. Five ideas were implemented within the region, and one, protecting mail carrier bags with plastic covers, was adopted on a national level.
Class The early post offices were listed as fourth class stations, advancing to third in June 1890. Second class qualifications were met in July 1906 and the post office briefly achieved first class in 1926, an unusual graduation for a small city post office. The first class designation was brief, ending in July 1933 due to deteriorating conditions of the Great Depression that caused a drop in revenue and therefore a reduction to second class. First class status was reestablished in 1937.
Delivery
Early mail delivery was often done on horseback, such as on the route from Chehalis to Randle which was handled by a Native American known as "Henry", or via buggy; pushcarts were used in the city. Mail carriers were not certified under a civil service entrance examination until 1909 and a postman could expect wages of 30 cents per hour. Official mail delivery within the city was not established until June 1909 though a rural route existed by 1905. Two additional carrier routes were added in 1913 and 1922, with a Rural Route No. 4 in 1922. A fifth route, made possible by road improvements in the county, was created in September 1924 and 3,822 people were record in 1925 as being served by the system. At the time of the dedication, Chehalis was part of a star route, connecting mail deliveries from Eastern Lewis County to South Bend, Washington, and had a postal district encompassing .
The Chehalis post office was used temporarily as the regional mail center beginning at the end of December 1961 after the post office in Centralia, which handled sorting duties, lost funding to modernize its location. With extra space in Chehalis, the efforts produced no delays or interruptions in service. The post office continued to have five rural routes in the mid-1960s, listing over 1,600 families on the lines. As part of a federal employee cutback during 1968, Saturday postal deposit box pickups were reduced to once a day and pauses were temporarily implemented on the creation of new routes or deliveries to newer residential areas.
Mail trucks were first used to deliver letters and parcels within the city, as well as rural routes emanating from Chehalis, in February 1973.
By 2006, the Chehalis MPO reported a daily handling between 35,000 and 40,000 pieces of mail by an operation of 34 employees.
Notable events and incidents A robbery of approximately $1,000 took place in 1895 at the Chehalis MPO. A special agent investigated Centralia postmaster John Laraway about the crime; Laraway was described during the time as lacking "good standing" with the federal post office department.
Post office boxes at Centralia and Chehalis were broken into by a trio of young teenagers in January 1923. The robberies took place over two or three days and the group stashed mail throughout Centralia, at times leaving a trail of dropped letters. A check for $13,000 was taken from Chehalis. When asked how they broke into the boxes that contained combination locks, one perpetrator stated, "That's easy."
A viral phenomenon starting from a social media post in October 2020, led to the post office receiving hundreds of pieces of mail from across the nation for Jimmy Armfield. Armfield, who often waited at the post office multiple times per day to check his post office box, also received packages and international deliveries for several days; his favorite items were photos sent from a family member.
Postmarks and stamps A pictorial cancellation stamp to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Washington state in 1989 was made available at the Chehalis Post Office. In early 1997, the Chehalis Post Office's official cancellation was no longer made available unless residents delivered their outgoing mail, or requested a stamp on already cancelled posts, in person. A recent change that year, sending mail to be sorted in Olympia where the machinery was faster, led to the loss of the cancellation stamp.