November 24, 2017
This is “Our Past Is Present” from the Geary County Historical Society.
Today’s
story is another from a published in the “Junction City Daily Union” and
written by Gaylynn Childs, our retired Executive Director.
“As the
Kansas frontier pushed westward, one of the first agencies established in a new
settlement was the post office. In the
territory that now constitutes Geary County, the first post office was at
Pawnee, the village started near the First Territorial Capitol in 1855. Robert Wilson, who ran the settler’s store at
Fort Riley was appointed the postmaster in March of that year, but the
community was so short-lived that by December the Pawnee post office had been
moved to Fort Riley.
The first
post office in Junction City was established in June of 1858, but there are
conflicting accounts as to the first postmaster. The Kansas State Historical Society records
list Nathan S. Ranschoff, but in the Andreas “History of Kansas”, L.J. Harris
is named as the first Junction City postmaster.
Ranschoff
was a merchant and the post office was located in his store until 1861. This store was located on West Sixth Street
between Washington and Jefferson Streets.
In 1864, George
W. Martin, editor of the “Union” newspaper was appointed the sixth postmaster
of Junction City and the location of the post office was moved to the building
in which Martin lived. This was midway
between 8th and 9th Streets on the east side of
Washington Street. The mail was
delivered by stagecoach during this period an often arrived in the middle of
the night.
When William
S. Blakely was appointed the postmaster position in 1873, the post office was
located on Washington Street somewhere between 7th and 8th
Streets. Ella Lawrenson, the only woman
postmaster to ever serve Junction City was appointed in 1894 and served until
she was replaced by her husband a year later.
There will
be more about how mail was delivered by carriers – even to the point of having
to swim across the Solomon River to do so.
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