Residents readying for switch to delivery

By NATE HUBBARD/Staff

Although Eddie Yonce’s retirement as postmaster is bringing an end to a century-long tradition of brick-and-mortar postal service in Cripple Creek, residents of the area shouldn’t see a substantial change in their available mail services.
The most significant change is the elimination of P.O. boxes in Cripple Creek. Yonce, however, said that many residents had already made the shift to rural route mailboxes in front of their homes even before he announced the post office would be closing after his retirement.
During the last two months, Yonce said he has been working to get people set up with personal mailboxes. As of his retirement date on Thursday, he said that only about a half dozen P.O. boxes remained rented at the Cripple Creek post office.
Jim Crockett was one P.O. box renter who has been affected by the looming post office closure. Crockett said he had been going to the Cripple Creek post office for about 40 years and liked having a P.O. box for the convenience of being able to get his mail when he stopped by the neighboring Cripple Creek Grocery that Yonce also owns.
In late November, Crockett made the switch to a mailbox in front of his property.
While most residents already have made the transition to a home mailbox, P.O. box options still will remain at post offices in neighboring communities.
Kim Mangus, Speedwell postmaster and part of the U.S. Postal Service team that is assisting in the transition coming about from Cripple Creek’s closure, said she has plenty of room at her post office for any Cripple Creek residents who still want a P.O. box.
“We’re actually talking about expanding my office,” she said.
The Speedwell and Ivanhoe post offices are each less than 10 miles from Cripple Creek. In addition, Yonce said mail carriers are able to provide many of the services that a post office can offer.
“The only advantage to a post office is that you can go to a post office anytime during the day that it’s open and if you need to talk to the rural carrier you have to be there when he runs,” Yonce said.
Carriers can sell stamps and even can provide money orders, although as Yonce mentioned, the turnaround time is slower because the carrier has to pick up the payment one day before providing the money order the next time the route is run.
The ability of computers to provide automated postal services also can help mitigate the loss of the physical store – although the rise of computer technology also was one of the factors in the Cripple Creek post office’s closure.
“What it boils down to is efficiency,” said David Walton, a USPS spokesperson for the Appalachian district. “More and more transactions are starting to move out of lobbies because of usps.com.”
Mangus also mentioned the possibility that the postal service will install a cluster of mailboxes near the Cripple Creek post office site that would allow P.O. box renters to retrieve their mail close to their familiar location.
Many decisions like the cluster of mailboxes option, though, are still undecided.
“A lot of things are still up in the air,” Mangus said. “Nothing is set in stone.”
Walton said he wouldn’t go as far as saying that closing down small post offices is becoming a trend, but he again emphasized the wide range of services available at http://www.usps.com.
Although Crockett has made a smooth transition to a mailbox on a rural route, he said he’s still concerned about the loss of identity for Cripple Creek with the loss of its post office.
“I don’t want an Ivanhoe address and I don’t want a Speedwell address,” he said.
Despite the post office’s scheduled closure on Jan. 11, Walton said officially Cripple Creek is only having its services suspended.
A formal closure has to be made by the postal rate commission with public hearings and that process would not take place for a few years, Walton added.
“The name stays on the books at least for a couple years,” he said.
Even if in the future the rate commission did officially eliminate the Cripple Creek postal designation, Walton said that decision would only affect the area’s zip code.
“They can keep the Cripple Creek address line,” he said, adding that he understood the importance of a community keeping its identity through the use of its name. “They would just have a new zip code.”
Although the postal service has a long history in Cripple Creek, Yonce said the physical location of the post office actually has moved multiple times in its 110 years.
Yonce said the community’s post office is classified as fourth class, meaning that the postmaster has to furnish the building for the office. That requirement led to the location shifting from business to business in the area as the postmaster job changed hands.
By the end of the week, though, the old white sign showing the post office’s current and final Cripple Creek location will be nothing more than a memento.
“I’ll keep it as a souvenir,” Yonce said.
Nate Hubbard can be reached at 228-6611 or .