A few months ago an accident at the Clarkrange Post Office rendered the building unusable until very recently. Now, I’ve talked here before about the post offices in Tennessee and especially Fentress County. Our dear mail carriers and the local postal staff relocated to Grimsley and hardly missed a beat in serving their customers. It was only a distance of 8 ½ miles, but we sure missed our post office!

As I prepared last week’s article about our disappearing local communities, I began to wonder what factors define a community, and the local post office seems like one of the biggest factors.

Historically, rural post offices were usually a part of other establishments. I would love to hear from all of you as you remember where the local post office was housed. (And wouldn’t it be fun if any of you have pictures of the stores where they were housed?)

For many years, the Clarkrange Post Office was part of the store on the corner of what are now named Highways 127 and 62. First that was Peters’ Store. Interesting fact, despite the store pre-existing state roads, the Peters’ store was too close to the road and the state made them tear it down. I remember it being in the rear of Freddy Stults’ store at the same location.

Our local postmaster was recently telling me that the postal system opted to move the post offices out into independent buildings because the stores were such popular gathering place for the community and sometimes their discussions were becoming too heated.

I know that losing having the post office consolidated with another community is always hurtful – both to the people and to the identity of the community. Those of us served by the Clarkrange Post Office certainly felt that and have a new appreciation for our local mail facility.