Early maps show a number of small post offices about Franklin County and around Sewanee. The first Sanborn map of Sewanee (1893) shows its post office in the southeast corner of the building now called SHENANIGANS. The post office moved, however, into a location fronting Tennessee Avenue (now University Avenue) about where the BLUE CHAIR is today, as shown in maps of 1907 and 1922.
In 1911 when President Taft visited Sewanee, the postmistress was Mrs. Edith Prince Young with Miss Sarah Young as her helper. There was no electricity in Sewanee at that time, and light fixtures used either oil or gas. The post office stayed open at night as people waited for the mail to be put up. The night train brought the Nashville Banner newspapers. Many people came down for the evening paper.
Eva Thomas was a post mistress in later years. So was Christian Ruef's daughter. Mrs. Harry Hawkins helped at the post office too. In earlier years the post office was run by Miss Bessie Kirby-Smith, post mistress, and her sister Carrie, assistant post mistress. In each case, these positions were held by women, but Samuel C. Hoge was an early postmaster.
And by 1930 the post office had moved to the southwest corner of Tennessee Avenue and First Street, with the telegraph office just north of it. This post office was used as the center point of Sewanee for purposes of calculating radial distances on the 1930 Sanborn insurance map prepared by V.R. Williams & Co., the University’s insurance carrier.
University mail was dispatched from this post office and distributed to offices and to a small student post office. For many years the student post office -known as “the SPO”- was located near the coffee shop on the first floor of Thompson Union. It eventually went into the basement of the Bishop's Common.
The main post office remained the same until a new site was selected, where it stands today, on the east side of University Avenue, in about the middle of downtown, on the former site of RUEF'S residence. That building was removed and in May 1965 a hardware store was built by leaseholders Sam K. and Claudia Partin. In 1966 they altered the building for postal services and the USPS moved into the space in 1967. The previous post office became shop space but burned in 1977.
The post office does not own its own building. It is leased, and since 1984, following the Partins, its leaseholder has been Tom McCutchen. The back portion of the building was leased to others. One was Ed Carlos, a professor of art at the University and an artist. He maintained a studio there and stored his many very large paintings there.
Pamela C Byerly, July 2022
See Sewanee Places p. 263-264. By Gerald Smith
Photos courtesy of Mary O'Neill, University Archives, Laura Rice and Ina May Myers estate