MS 944 - United States Post Office Records (Upper Sandusky, Ohio)

Title	MS 944 - United States Post Office Records (Upper Sandusky, Ohio)
Introduction	The Upper Sandusky Post Office Records were donated to the Center for Archival Collections by Harrison Scott Baker II, Upper Sandusky, Ohio, on September 4, 2001. The collection consists of .5 feet of scattered correspondence, subject files, and printed material related to the operation of that Post Office, with the bulk of the material from 1901 until 1936. The collection was processed and finding aid prepared by Marilyn Levinson, Curator of Manuscripts in March 2002.
Agency History	There has been postal service in Upper Sandusky since at least 1813 (when the city was under the jurisdiction of Indiana County with John McClellan as postmaster). Subsequent political changes shifted the town to the control of Delaware County in 1819, and a designated Post Office was operating in Upper Sandusky in 1820, when the town was part of Crawford County. Between 1820 and 1936, there were 31 postmasters assigned to the office (a listing is given in the text of the speech delivered at the 1936 building dedication). In the period covered by this collection, the service was in the process of moving to a newly leased location. Within the next 10 years such changes were instituted as city delivery, requiring mail boxes at all houses as well as identifying numbers on the dwellings. During the period it was the practice to have two deliveries a day, so the issues of staffing and workload were constant problems. As many small-towns post offices declined their services were often assumed by nearby towns, as was the case in 1905, when the office at Warpole closed and the service transferred to Upper Sandusky. In 1933 the U.S. Public Works Administration allocated $71,700 for the construction of a Federal Building in Upper Sandusky, that would include facilities for the Post Office, and this new Post Office building was dedicated in 1936.
Scope and Content	The records for the Upper Sandusky Post Office in this collection are just a sampling of correspondence, subject and statistical files, and printed material. The material documents a time of change for this particular Post Office, as it moved from one location to another, began city delivery service, and planned for a new building. Although incomplete, the available correspondence gives a good representation of the daily operation of a small urban postal operation, the issues of personnel, salary, the impact of the war on service and personnel, and some of the background planning for a new building in the 1930s.
Series Description	CORRESPONDENCE GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE 1901-1923 (scattered) Arranged chronologically Correspondence, circulars, memos, and forms related to the operation of the postal service in Upper Sandusky, including issues of service policy, staffing requirements, salaries, equipment, maintenance costs, and personnel SUBJECT FILES INDIVIDUAL FILES 1901-1936 (scattered) Arranged by topic Subject files related to specific topics of personnel, individual carriers, postmaster salary, statistical data (including reports of weight loads carried), the establishment of city delivery, leases, and information related to the planning of the new building and its dedication PRINTED MATERIAL BOOKS 1936, 1956, 1968 Postal Service guidebooks with information on transportation connections with rail lines for the dispatch and distribution of outgoing mail
Inventory	Box 1 Folder Correspondence, 1901-1913 Correspondence, 1914-1923 Postmaster salary, 1901-1907, 1917 Personnel lists, 1906-1923 Post Office lease, 1902-1903 Establishment of city delivery, 1911-1912 Postal carrier George Irwin, 1913-1914 Postal carrier Ralph T. Ellis, 1919 Statistical data, 1916-1918, 1921 New Post Office site acquisition, 1933 New Post Office dedication, 1936 General Scheme of Ohio, 1936, 1956 Schedule of Mail Routes - Cincinnati Region, 1968