The Lafayette Post Office Celebrates 155 Years!

Historic postmarks from Lafayette Post Office

There are many institutions, places, and people that make a town feel like a real town, but none has cache like the post office. Every American city likes to have one: a place to connect with the rest of the world and maybe get the town gossip. This year, Lafayette’s very own post office celebrates 155 years in the business of knitting the community together.

The first post office opened in 1857 as part of the Old Pioneer grocery store at 3535 Plaza Way. Mail was supervised by the first Postmaster Benjamin Shreve, who served for 30 years and was succeeded by his son Milton.This location is best known as the site that served as a Pony Express stop from 1860-1861, but after just 20 runs the historic service was shut down.

Carrie Van Meter in front of Post Office in early 1900’s

In 1904 the post office relocated to a small “hole in the wall” building at the corner of Tunnel Road (now Mt. Diablo Boulevard) and Moraga Road. Carrie Van Meter served as Postmaster there until 1927, when the office relocated again. The tiny set-up served just 11 families who lived in the area.

As the city expanded and changed it’s name from La Fayette to Lafayette, town services consolidated in the relocated #2 Grammar School house at 3535 Mt. Diablo Blvd. That building contained the phone company, library and post office, with Emelia Schutt as Postmaster until1952. At this point in its history, rural carriers still brought mail to distant houses and ranches and even occasionally delivered live animals like chicks, bee hives and chameleons.

With post-war growth came an ever bigger post office. The fourth office was located at 3561 and 3563 Mt. Diablo Blvd., and this iteration was where Lafayette’s office attained First Class status on July 1, 1949. Just ten years later, the office would relocate again, to the first building in La Fiesta Square, 973 Moraga Road. This fifth post office is best known as the “wild wild west” location, because three loaded long- barrel Smith and Wesson revolvers were installed at the finance windows. The guns didn’t last long and neither did the location, with another move and post office #6 opening in 1958 at 3498 Mt. Diablo Blvd.

Temporary Post Office Trailers

On July 1, 1971, the “Post Office Department” became the semi-private United States Postal Service. Then on June 5, 1976 Lafayette lost its distribution clerks and all of its carriers to Walnut Creek. This was a hugely unpopular move, with many local post office workers having to relocate their jobs to Walnut Creek. The post office proper was moved to two portable trailers at 3641 Mt. Diablo Blvd. The permanent building was completed in 1979.

Happily by the year 2000, Lafayette got its mail carriers back. They were and are still housed in a “carrier annex” at 3426 Mt. Diablo Blvd. behind Bo’s Barbeque.

It’s interesting to note that Lafayette has the 3rd oldest post office in Contra Costa County, after Martinez and Alamo, and still remains as evidence of Lafayette’s pioneer heritage.

Special thanks to Dave Obera, who served the Post Office from 1946-1979 and prepared a very helpful history of the Lafayette Post Office.

For more information and photos of the Post Office, visit the History Room in the Library and Learning Center – enter on Golden Gate Way.

-Amanda Berkson-Brand