The Anchor Point Post Office will celebrate its 75th anniversary on Friday, March 1.
From 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., community members are invited to stop by the post office for “good old-fashioned fun,” including goodies, drawings, kids activities and a special rubber stamp to endorse cards and letters, according to a flyer distributed to Anchor Point postal customers.
Postal workers also welcome community members to share their stories and memories about the post office since its beginnings.
The first Anchor Point Post Office was established in 1949, in what postmaster Laurinda Phillips called Peterson’s store, in an email sent to Homer News Monday. The store was located just across the Anchor River Bridge, in what is now the Anchor River State Recreation Area. Dorris Peterson worked as the first appointed postmaster until 1953.
According to the flyer, Ruth Kyllonen, matriarch of one of the earliest homesteading families in Anchor Point, commemorated the opening of the Anchor Point Post Office with a letter sent to her children in Ardmore, Pennsylvania on March 1, 1949.
“Dear kidlets, this really isn’t a letter, I’m merely trying to send a note to everyone as we’re opening our P.O. on Mar 1 and those 1st day cancellations are sometimes worth money, so hang onto this envelope,” Kyllonen wrote in her commemorative letter.
Phillips also wrote that as early as 1947, the United States Post Office Department was gathering the information and preparing for the establishment of the Anchor Point Post Office. USPOD records show that at the time, the nearest post offices to Anchor Point were located approximately 90 miles north in Kenai, 16 miles east in Homer, “somewhere in Bristol Bay” to the west, and in Kodiak to the south. The record also notes that construction of the new Sterling Highway was underway.
“Just like in the past, mail today is an integral part of our community,” Phillips wrote. “The employees at the Anchor Point Post Office are very connected to the community. We live here, we work here, and we look forward to serving our customers for another 75 years.”
The United States Post Office Department began preparing for the establishment of the Anchor Point Post Office as early as 1947. Photo provided by Laurinda Phillips
