From a class trip to the Port Washington Post Office in the 1930s (pictured upper left) to the sleek operations of the Post Office of today, our ways of contacting each other have dramatically changed over time. In the current era of computers, email, and cell phones, communication is almost instantaneous. Sorting and delivering mail seems antiquated. But I for one still enjoy holding the physical book or letter or postcard in my hand.  It keeps me rooted in the past. Mail sack or cyberspace, we are on the cusp of new forms of connecting.

The original Port Washington Post Office (pictured above) opened in 1902. Sharing the premises with the Bank of North Hempstead, it was located at 324 Main Street and delivered letters and parcels weighing four pounds or less. Large packages were left to private express companies to deliver. Before that, dating back to the 1850s, mail came from the Roslyn station via horse and buggy. John Kilpatrick, a Roslyn baker, earned $50 a year for carting the mail to a location on Mill Pond and Shore Road.

After the economic growth of the early 20^th century, the expansion of transportation and communication and the establishment of the United States Postal Service, the Post Office that we see today on Port Washington Blvd was built in 1935, during the Great Depression, funded by a PWA (Public Works Administration) project as part of the New Deal. To find out more about Port’s postal history, consult www.pwpl.org/localhistory/catalog and scroll down to the Port Washington Post Office Collection and the Post Master Account Books.