Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

The stays of execution are, in all likelihood, temporary. But it’s something.

In Kilduff, for example, doomsday was going to be in November, until it was moved to January, and now May. Same for Fostoria and Rembrandt.

Unfortunately, the USPS website can be a bit cumbersome to navigate. I found a list of towns that appealed their closures, but some have had their final appeals denied; however, I can’t find that information. Links below are to each town’s notice in the Federal Register:

• July: Unionville, Hamilton, Rodney, Chillicothe, Pilot Grove, Thayer
• August: Masonville, Grant, Ottosen
• September: Lincoln, Sharpsburg, Ionia (FR only, no appeal listed), Evansdale
• October: St. Lucas, St. Olaf, Ferguson, Rembrandt, Orchard
• November: Swaledale, Rippey, Prescott, Greeley, Holland, Harris, Mt. Union, McCallsburg, Fostoria, Plover, Alvord, St. Anthony, Ashton

The Federal Register documents have been issued in the town order listed here. The file for Harris is due out Friday, so it can be expected the rest will follow. Lincoln’s 120-day appeal schedule expires a week from today. The moratorium may only serve to have a glut of closings next spring.

The Federal Register search list has 20 items per page. Only one page going back to July doesn’t have an Iowa town on it. In fact, Iowa appears so often that the Postal Regulatory Commission accidentally wrote “Hoxie, Iowa” instead of “Hoxie, Arkansas” on one notice.

I’ve also updated the maps to reflect what little I know for sure about new closures, based on newspaper articles or the list at iowabackroads.com.

EDIT 12/22: There is a distinction in website navigation between the USPS and the Postal Regulatory Commission. In the interests of integrity I have left the sentence intact but struck through.

AP/Iowa City Press-Citizen report.

This may only apply to a certain subset of the post offices on The List and the four processing centers (Carroll, Cedar Rapids, Creston, and Waterloo). It’s already too late for some; the ICPC reports that Homestead’s post office has already closed.

I posted a couple weeks ago about the Buckingham post office closing. I’m sure there are others in the state that have passed the study period and are going to be shut down, although I’ve read the USPS has said it won’t close any more this year.

But if you know about one that has closed in the past couple of months, after I put up the maps (linked in the sidebar), please let me know. E-mail is on the sidebar too.