WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2, 2016
HERMISTON HISTORY
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Hermiston Post
Oice overflowed
location in 1941
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By JENNIFER COLTON
Staff Writer
Mail service to Hermis-
ton started slow, just like
the sleepy farming town it
served, but when the con-
struction of the Umatilla
Ordnance Depot explod-
ed the city’s population,
it also sent mail service in
orbit.
From horseback to
wagon, rural mail in the
Hermiston area found its
owners one way or an-
other. The city named its
¿rst postmaster in
and didn’t break ground
on a designated post of¿ce
building until . The
quiet mail service had an
awakening two decades
later.
,n , headlines in
the Hermiston Herald
chronicled the growing
work at the site with week-
ly headlines like “City
Booms as Work Progress-
es at Munitions Site.” The
student population for the
Hermiston School district
doubled and tripled, and,
on a Friday evening, at
least one local shop closed
its doors early because it
ran out of beer.
With the booming busi-
ness and inÀux of work-
ers, even the Hermiston
Post Of¿ce felt the strain.
,n -une of ,
new mailboxes were in-
stalled, more than dou-
bling the city’s total, ac-
cording to writings by
local historian Ron Ingle.
Employees were hired,
but the small building
constructed for a frac-
tion of the business soon
proved inadequate as
Hermiston’s population
exploded.
Russell Lee, a photog-
rapher and photojournalist
for the Farm Security Ad-
ministration, traveled to
Hermiston that September
to document the growth
and construction of the
depot. Among Lee’s sub-
jects were the staff of the
Hermiston Post Of¿ce,
which grew from three
employees in early
to employees by Sep-
tember of that year.
Lee reported: “Eight
hundred people got mail
at this post of¿ce before
the boom; twelve thou-
sand get mail here now.”
Lee also reported the Post
Of¿ce sent out , mon-
ey orders monthly with an
average of each.
Ingle wrote of
that, “A total of ,
money orders amounting
to about , were
sold, of them in one
day. There was a waiting
line for mail most of the
day; on September ,
people stood in two lines
waiting for services.”
Hermiston residents
have a long history of dis-
agreements as to where
a post office should be
located, and post office
construction sites in the
s, the s, and the
s were hotly debat-
ed on both sides of the
city. While Hermiston
debated, the settlement
of Ordnance, about
miles from Hermiston,
established a post office
on Dec. , , to serve
the depot workers. That
post office operated until
Feb. , .
A new Hermiston po-
lice office opened in
December of , east
of the Oasis Theater on
Main Street, and was fol-
lowed by a location at
Fourth Street and Main
Street in , according
to Ingle.
The Hermiston Post
Office moved again in the
s. The postal service
reached an agreement
with the city of Hermis-
ton and Umatilla County
to build a new post of-
fice next to the Umatilla
County Fairgrounds in
. That building was
dedicated in .
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PHOTOS BY THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
These photographs were taken by Russell Lee, a photographer and
photojournalist who worked with the Farm Security Administration during the
Great Depression and World War II. Lee visited Umatilla County in 1941 to document
the growth of the region and the construction of the Umatilla Ordnance Depot. The
photos are now part of the Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information
Collection at the Library of Congress.
Postmasters for the
Hermiston Post Office
Name - Title - Date
Appointed
Joseph F. McNaught - Postmaster -
02/03/1905
Clarence K. Bland - Postmaster -
09/09/1905
John H. Williams - Postmaster -
03/14/1908
John H. Young - Postmaster - 03/10/1914
Charles H. Skinner - Acting Postmaster
- 11/15/1919
Charles H. Skinner - Postmaster -
05/06/1920
Mrs. Leila A. Phelps - Acting Postmaster
- 06/30/1924
Mrs. Leila A. Phelps - Postmaster -
01/26/1925
Hiram J. Stillings - Acting Postmaster
- 06/01/1933
Hiram J. Stillings - Postmaster -
05/31/1934
Harvey P. De Moss - Acting Postmaster
- 09/16/1935
Harvey P. De Moss - Postmaster-
06/18/1936
William E. Logan - Acting Postmaster
- 05/11/1937
William E. Logan - Postmaster -
08/19/1937
Fred M. Reeves - Acting Postmaster -
10/31/1963
Fred M. Reeves - Postmaster -
07/26/1965
Ray Kurz - Officer-In-Charge -
04/08/1976
Ray B. Moses - Postmaster - 09/11/1976
Raymond E. Greenwood - Officer-In-
Charge - 12/15/1978
Samuel J. Via - Officer-In-Charge -
04/06/1979
Michael B. Schaefer - Postmaster -
07/28/1979
Kimberly J. Gillet - Officer-In-Charge -
01/03/2005
Kimberly J. Gillet - Postmaster -
03/05/2005
Scott D. Green - Officer-In-Charge -
04/01/2009
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