Minnesota's First Post Office

Minnesota's first post office was at Fort Snelling. It operated from 1827 through 1918. Fort Snelling was abandoned as a military installation after World War II. It is still open for tours and reenactments. It is one of a handful of post offices that were operating prior to the establishment of the Minnesota Territory. I know Stillwater, St. Paul, Wabasha(w) all opened in the 1840's. I'm sure there are others.
I don't have any territorial or pre-territorial covers from Fort Snelling. In the picture below the first cover is from 1917 which was one year before the post office closed.
Fort Snelling has  had two days that they were open for special cancellations . One was for the First Day of Issue for the six cent stamp commemorating the Sesquicentennial  of Fort Snelling.
The second cover has signatures from most of the notables that were at the ceremony. Many of these men were instrumental to getting the First Day ceremony held at Fort Snelling. I don't know who all the signatures are from. If you know please leave it in the comment section. Wayne Hassell was a stamp dealer that also wrote a stamp column for the Tribune. Floyd Risvold wrote "the" book on Minnesota Postal History. Les was the artist.
The third cover is signed by the governor at the time, Harold LeVander.

Circle Pines

In keeping with my theme it looks like my first posts are the places I have lived. It may not be thrilling for all of you, but it is what started me down the path of collecting postal history. Above are two covers from the first day of service from the Circle Pines, Minnesota post office. The postal card on the bottom is of the backside and has the first postmasters signature. I have lived in Blaine for almost 30 years. The Blaine post office is a branch office of the Minneapolis post office. I have used the Circle Pines post office for the last 27 years, and for most of the time that I have lived in Blaine it was actually the post office that delivered my mail.
Circle Pines was a planned community that was developed shortly after World War II and  tried to become almost a mini socialist society. It did not work and most of the original homes became lower income homes.
My next posts promises to be someplace other than someplace where I have lived. The only other place I have lived was Shoreview which has never had an independent post office. Oh I forgot I did live in Minneapolis for five months. That does not count. That was  kind of a five month long party.

Elk River

For the first four years of my life we lived in Elk River, Minnesota. Elk River has had an operating post office since 1876. From 1866 to 1876 it was called Elk River Station. The town had a sawmill and a hydro electric  power plant in the Elk River Station days. Agriculture became the main business before the end of the 19th century and the town had a population of over 2000 people in 1870. The largest farm, (The Kelley Farm) is still around and is on the Historic Register. It has not been an operating farm for as long as I can remember. It is open for tours with people dressed in period  costumes and utilizing 19th century farm equipment.
Many people may also remember that Elk River had one of the nation's first nuclear power plants that has been called Minnesota's Chernobyl in recent years. An accident in the early 60's closed it down and the reactor was removed and buried. There have been conflicting stories and I don't  know the whole true story. Somewhere I have a postcard of it that I will post.
My family history in Elk River was my dad was born and raised there.My grandparents  were there  for at least 70 years with my grandfather being a business leader in town. He had a Chevy dealership from 1923 until 1961. He was an officer at the local bank and he had been mayor of Elk River at the same time Hubert Humphrey was mayor of Minneapolis. I have correspondence from HHH to my Grandfather from that time period. My immediate family lived there from the early 50's or late 40's until 1962.

In these two covers the first is from Elk River Station from March 9, 1873. It does have an enclosure that is a family letter that mainly is about a big snowstorm. The second is from Elk River dated February 20 1878. It does not have an enclosure.

Fridley

I am planning on posting images of covers from Minnesota Discontinued Post Offices. I am new to blogging, so we will see how this goes. If you have questions or anything to add, please do so. I have been known to look at the cancellation more than the stamp itself. I have had friends say things like " yeah Pat, that cancellation is nice , but I think that is a #64". When I say I don't look at the stamps that much it makes some people cringe. Obviously that does not apply to the cover above.

The cover above is the oldest known manuscript cancel from Fridley, Minnesota. I started collecting Minnesota Postal History by searching specifically for a Fridley cancel. This was the town I grew up in. While Fridley had and still does have a post office, it is a branch of the Minneapolis post office. Fridley has not had an independent post office since 1927, which was  22 years before the city incorporated. I now have many Fridley cancels, but it took me many years to find the first one. In the process I saved many covers of small towns and interesting names and eventually a collection was born. This is my prized Fridley cover.

Staying with my Fridley theme the above cover is from Manomin, Minnesota. It later became Fridley. Manomin was in Manomin County which was the smallest county in the U.S.. It's history does go back to territorial Minnesota. It had a ferry crossing which was one of the only ways to cross the Mississippi to the area that would later become Minneapolis. It was on the Great River Road which was the only land route between Fort Snelling and Fort Ripley in the early Minnesota Territorial times. Manomin was roughly halfway between the two. This has a very interesting letter from a man to his nephew describing his journey from Illinois to Minnesota just four years after Minnesota statehood. His journey was full of adventure and hardship. The letter is written in pencil. After I received this I questioned the letter being in pencil as most of my 19th century stuff is done in pen that in time has faded. A quick internet search quickly informed me that the pencil has been around for almost 200 years.
The population in 1870 was 212. That is the closest year that I have census data for.