I recently found these 2 covers at the local flea market. I learned that Alabama is the name of a small town in New York. I think the South Alabama cover is a DPO. Can anyone confirm that?
Both Alabama and South Alabama are in Genessee county, NY, up near Lake Ontario.
Looking at a map, South Alabama is just southeast of Alabama. Makes sense, I guess...
Jim Forte's site lists South Alabama PO as being in operation 1850-1904. And, it lists Alabama as being commissioned in 1828.
Towns Named After States.
Hmmm, that could be an interesting collecting area...
Speaking of old POs,
I'm already attracted to ghost towns named after big towns as a cover collecting area. Like Nashville, Iowa, a few miles west of where I grew up....
The history of these teeny, tiny POs can be very intriguing. Often, there's a tremendous amount of hegemony among postmasters. One of the DPOs I collect is Thompson, Delaware. Yes, every postmaster this (ghost) town ever had was a Thompson! I'm still trying to determine if the PO and the train station shared a building, or even a window to sell tickets or stamps as the need arose...After the RR went Tango Uniform in 1916, the town withered.
Speaking of postmasters, for the POs that had a designated salary for the postmaster, these were highly political appointments in the 19th century. In hotly contested towns, the PM's political party would change with the President's.
I've lived my whole life in WNY - I had to look up these towns as I was not familiar with, I live about 45 minutes away from them. I guess they are so tiny I have never met anyone from them or had the opportunity to drive through them, I was actually a few minutes south of Alabama yesterday driving to the Buffalo suburbs to do some shopping/dinner.
Decades ago, there was (and perhaps there still is) a largish mostly-burgers diner in Dallas where the customers sat surrounded by a ring of plain, large clocks.
They were identical, and were all mounted high up on the wall.
Below each clock was a neat sign bearing the name of a city.
All of the major cities of the world were represented.
And all of the clocks were set to the same time.
Let's see if you can get the joke:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris,_Texas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow,_Texas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin,_Texas
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey (who thinks that state-names-as-town-names-cancels would make a terrific topical cover collection)
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"I collect stamps today precisely the way I collected stamps when I was ten years old."
Thank you everyone for the kind words and adding to this thread. I see how you can look up a DPO now. I will put both of these covers in my DPO binder.
ikeyPikey, such a topical cover collection would be possible, as I could drive up to Nevada, over to Wyoming, and then down to Washington...heck I could even drive to Norway and Jamaica, and never leave my home state of Iowa!
Texas and Mexico are in New York as well (Oswego County).
New York is also in Texas.
It is a short distance from Athens where I had taken my grandsons a few years ago. I told them that I was taking them to New York. They were excited to go to the "big" city that was so far away. They were surprised when we arrived in about 20 minutes, and that there were just the fire station, a church, and a few houses.
Conversely Washington and Toronto are in County Durham.
Boston is in Lincolnshire.
Calgary (Sands) is on the Island of Mull.
Whitby is in North Yorkshire.
Halifax is in West Yorkshire.
Newport ( not News )is in Cornwall, or East Yorkshire, or Essex, or Gloucestershire, or Highland, or Isle of Wight, or Newport (County), or Pembrokeshire or Wrekin, not forgetting Newport-on-Tay in Fife or Newport Pagnell in Milton Keynes !!
And, while I'm looking for material to collect, Des Moines in is New Mexico. And Washington state. Farley is also in New Mexico, and Iowa. Farley, NM is my ideal town to live in.
-Paul, from rural Reading. PA, that is. (channeling John Prine).
A funny thing... this morning my eBay search for GUAM (1903,1904,1905,1906,1907,1908,1909) in USA Covers sent me an email with a hit! I click on it and there's the above cover. It ahd a "Buy It Now" of something like $11 which would have been a screaming bargain for a Guam (US possession) cover! Then I looked twice...
Note that GUAM on my Scott 300 has been the most elusive of the US possessions!
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