Postal service was established in the Kossuth County town of Lone Rock on March 26, 1896, with the first office located inside George Munch’s general store. Evelyn Earing holds the distinction of being the town’s longest tenured postmaster, operating the office from 1923 until 1965. Shortly after her retirement, the post office was moved to its current location on the east side of Maine Street.
The earliest settlers to the Page County village now known as Shambaugh faced a 120-mile round trip tor each the nearest post office in Savannah, Missouri. The trip took two to three days each way, due to the absence of paved roads and bridges. Settlers took turns going in for the mail and brought provisions in large quantity. The trip was made shorter when an office was established 35 miles away in Marysville, Missouri, and again in April 1870, when a location was established five miles south of town by the name of Nodaway Mills Post Office.
The Nodaway Mills location was moved to the north and renamed as the Shambaugh Post Office on January 23, 1880. The post office has been located in its current building since 1957.
Postal service was established in the Tama County town of Elberon in January 1882, with Nathaniel L. Brown appointed the city’s first postmaster. He operated the office from his general store, with mail original delivered from Belle Plaine twice weekly. On April 10, 1882, mail began being delivered via the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Rail stop in Elberon. The post office served its longest tenure in an old bank building, from 1937 to 1981. The current post office facility opened January 17, 1985.
Postal service was established in the Humboldt County of Thor on January 10, 1882. Early mail arrived at the community three times a day by train. Details from the Humboldt County 1976 history book:
Torsten S. Rogdo was one of the early postmasters in the year of 1907; the post office was on the west side of Thor’s main street. During his time of service, three trains left mail. At 8:00 a.m., the morning Flyer arrived from the east, the stop which resulted in the most mail; then it returned at noon with mail from the west. At 2:00 p.m., a second train arrived from Chicago with more eastern mail. Outgoing mail was sent out in the Evening Flyer at 9:00 p.m.
In addition to the outgoing mail, the Evening Flyer often carried passengers from the county’s largest community; residents enjoyed meeting the evening train to see who arrived from Humboldt.
In 1940, A.T. Guddall was appointed postmaster, while the office was located within the former Old Farmers Savings Bank building. He built the building currently housing the post office in 1956. Guddall served as postmaster until 1973.
The first post office in the Monona County seat of Onawa was established in 1855 and consisted of a few boxes in the corner of the Fairchild General Store. After locations in a number of local storefronts, bids were opened for a standalone post office building in May 1936. The contract was awarded to the H.W. Underhill Construction Company of Wichita, Kansas, on August 20, 1936. Work was completed at a cost of $49,720 in April 1937.
The WPA-era building’s lobby features an oil-on-canvas mural named Soil Erosion and Control. The mural, painted by Lee Allen, was carried out under the program of the “Section of Fine Arts, Federal Works Agency, Public Building Administrations,” which was established to decorate Federal buildings with murals and sculpture. Approximately 1% of the building cost was dedicated for this decoration.