The Postmark Adventures of Kelvin Kindahl, Part 15
July 15 -- Several years ago, Lisbon Falls was a large post office and Lisbon and Lisbon Center were smaller. Lisbon Center was closed. More recently, Lisbon moved to a new and larger building, closer to Lisbon Center than it is to Lisbon.
That building is now the main office for the entire town of Lisbon, and Lisbon Falls was made o station of it. Carriers for Lisbon Falls now work from the Lisbon Office.
Later in the day I found the office for the village of Poland Spring to be three or four miles away from the village. That building is another large new one, centrally located between several villages and towns. It used to be Poland Spring, but is now called Poland. The former Poland office is now closed and I wouldn't be surprised if East Poland and West Poland close sometime soon.
Lewiston and Auburn, twin cities on the Androscoggin River, and Main's third largest city. Both are, in my opinion, distinctly blah towns. Bates College, in Lewiston, is the location of Station #4. Great Falls station of Auburn was using a Great Falls Plaza station postmark.
July 17 -- Newry, Maine, is scheduled to move from a tiny location in the center of town, where is has 150 square feet of space, to a much larger location in a shopping center on the access road to the Sunday River ski resort. It will then have 2,500 square feet of space. Sunday River is in a completely different part of town, but is obviously the biggest thing in Newry.
Rumford Center is inside a little pizza shop, and didn't look like a regular post office. In talking to the operators, I realized that it wasn't n independent post office anymore, its now a CPO. However, rather than being a CPO of Rumford, which is the nearest big town only six miles away, it is a CPO of Dixfield, which is six miles past Rumford, on the far side of Mexico, Maine.
The reason is that Dixfield is a second class post office, while Rumford and Mexico are both first class (or the equivalent). Large post offices have more expensive post office box rents, and those rates apply to all subordinate units as well. Therefore, if Rumford Center was administratively attached to Rumford of Mexico, it post office box rates would have had to be raised. But if it were attached to Dixfield, USPS could skirt its own rules and keep the lower rates at Rumford Center.
Rumford Center still gets its mail from Rumford, but sends its financial reports to Dixfield. The husband and wife who run both the post office and the pizzeria were very interesting and fun to talk with.
