Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

The Clutier Fun Day Bohemian Plum Festival was Saturday, about a month after the derecho.

KWWL:

After that storm there were some questions if this town celebration would happen. But people here were bound and determined to clean up, go on with their lives, and celebrate a community comeback.

Just a little more than three weeks ago Clutier’s main street was filled with debris, power lines, and tree branches covered the streets.

…The storm also destroyed the town’s post office. Mail boxes are now in Clutier to recieve mail, but for some outgoing mail – residents must drive to Dysart.

That last paragraph leads me to think the permanent closure of the (even then temporary) post office is a done deal. Dysart, like Clutier, has a ZIP code based off Cedar Rapids.

This is a rundown of things gleaned from the July and April lists of post offices the USPS is considering closing. (I’m assuming that since there is no overlap, the previous list is still valid.) The Iowa Back Roads and Des Moines Register links in the previous post helped with this.

Some context: A USPS spokesman told Radio Iowa that the state has 900 post offices, 3% of the nation’s total, while having 1% of the nation’s population.

• Only seven counties have no post offices on The List: Allamakee, Cedar, Chickasaw, Floyd, Ida, Pottawattamie, and Sioux.
• Twenty counties have one.
• Six have five: Cherokee, Fremont, Humboldt, Marshall (including Rhodes, above), Ringgold. Woodbury County has five plus two Sioux City branches.
• Four have six: Appanoose, Decatur, Keokuk, and Webster. Technically, Polk County also has six, but two are Des Moines branches.
• If the Clutier and Garwin post offices have uncertain futures after the windstorm that wiped them out, Tama County has eight – the most of any county. Only five would be left there.
• Decatur and Ringgold counties would be left with two post offices each – Mount Ayr, Kellerton, Leon, and Lamoni – assuming Lamoni keeps its postmaster.
• Appanoose County would be left with four out of a current ten. Cherokee and Fremont counties would both be left with three out of eight. (Google Maps already marks Imogene as “permanently closed”.)
• Both of the state’s post offices that start with Q – Quasqueton and Quimby – are endangered. So, also, is Zwingle, the last city in alphabetical order in Iowa. (Zearing is safe, for now.)
• Not counting the large cities at risk of losing a branch office, ten towns have a population above 500 (including Garwin). Largest: Tabor, pop. 1040.
• At least 12 locations are in danger of literally being wiped off the map. An unincorporated place must meet two of six criteria to be on the official state map, and one of those is having a post office. Those places are Argyle, Austinville, Booneville, Buckingham, Cedar, Kilduff, Moscow, Oran, Otley, Pilot Grove, Prole, and Swedesburg. Nine more are Census Designated Places, but that might not make a difference: Bradford, Climbing Hill, Conroy, Garden City, Homestead, Middle Amana, Percival, South Amana, and Watkins.
• Three are unincorporated but have a high school: Burnside (SE Webster-Grand), Liberty Center (SE Warren), and Troy Mills (North Linn). Schools tend to send a lot of mail.
• Seven Nine others currently have a high school: Alleman, Blairsburg, College Springs, Diagonal, Garden Grove, Garwin, Lake Park, New Hartford, and Tabor.
• Eight Nine more have a school but not a high school: Andrew, Clemons (private), Crystal Lake, Elk Horn, Lu Verne, Mallard, Mingo, New Hartford, and Rippey. Andrew and Crystal Lake run the risk of losing both their high school and their post office in a 12-month span. Lineville has already lost its school, period.
• The Fort Dodge Messenger says decisions have been made on six statewide: Goodell, Masonville, Patterson, Pilot Grove, Searsboro, and Unionville. A handful of others have already officially been closed.
• The USPS has managed to target the hometown of a sitting U.S. senator – Chuck Grassley’s own New Hartford – and the former hometowns of two U.S. representatives – Alexander (Tom Latham) and Davis City (Leonard Boswell).

UPDATE late 7/29: Added remainder in Cherokee and Fremont counties. That makes at least six counties that would lose more than half their post offices (Appanoose, Cherokee, Decatur, Fremont, Ringgold, Tama). I’m not sure about the others with a high number of potential closures.

UPDATE late 7/30: Added Alleman and Mingo to the school lists.

UPDATE 8/4: Forgot New Hartford on the school list.

178 Iowa Post Offices Could Close (KCCI) (with alphabetical list)

The only difference I can tell with this set is that it’s accompanied by a discussion about “village post offices” inside other businesses, which is a non-starter if the only business in town IS the post office.

As far as I can tell, few to none of these were on a semi-unofficial list made available earlier this year.

As of January 1, Tama County had 13 post offices, one in every incorporated place plus Buckingham. Of those:

• Two – Buckingham and Lincoln – are on the earlier list of post offices at risk of closing.
• Two – Garwin and Clutier – got wiped out in the “derecho” earlier this month. Given the issues swirling around, the best that can be said is that their future status is “unknown.”
• Four – Chelsea, Elberon, Montour, and Vining – are on this newest list.

Of other interest in this new list: The post office in Iowa State’s Memorial Union; three out of seven Amana Colonies (Middle, South, Homestead); Haverhill, Liscomb, Rhodes, and Whitten; Zwingle, the last city in alphabetical order in Iowa.

UPDATE: Yes, more. Title punctuation updated accordingly.