Abandoned Dean, Texass Post Office
Oct 9, 2016 12:58:36 GMT -5
kacyds, BasSWarwick, and 1 more like this
Post by Gordon Lee on Oct 9, 2016 12:58:36 GMT -5
Greetings Fellow SB Boarders
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I reckon most of you know of my propensity for weird history and checking facts about ghost towns (see stampbears.net/thread/1142/elizabeth-creek-couple-nakid-cuties about Elizabethtown, Texass). When one thinks of ghost towns one automatically pictures run down building and remains of a civilization. Quite often, however, there is not a lick of anything remaining. Well, here is another ghost town. In this case of Dean, Texass only the post office gives evidence of it's once existence.
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Stuck way out in the sparsely populated panhandle in Deaf Smith County, along a major route between Amarillo and New Mexico, was once a watering stop called Dean, Texass. It took the name of the family that occupied a small picket house (posts set into the ground, plastered with mud, and roofed with sod) in the late 1800's. The location was once an Indian campground with a reliable water spring adjacent to Palo Duro Creek. Mail service to the Deans and other settlers in the neighborhood was quite iffy. The solution was to create their own post office. So they did. Soon, they had regular mail service at least twice a week.
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Thomas Dean became the first in 1892. What makes this particular post office weird is that it is a cave eroded out of caliche rock on the North bank of the Palo Duro Creek. Individual "boxes" were hand dug into the walls for the nearby settlers to come by and pick up their mail. It was operational until 1899.
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DEAN POST OFFICE -- 1892 - 1899
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Respectfully,
Gordon Lee
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I reckon most of you know of my propensity for weird history and checking facts about ghost towns (see stampbears.net/thread/1142/elizabeth-creek-couple-nakid-cuties about Elizabethtown, Texass). When one thinks of ghost towns one automatically pictures run down building and remains of a civilization. Quite often, however, there is not a lick of anything remaining. Well, here is another ghost town. In this case of Dean, Texass only the post office gives evidence of it's once existence.
.
Stuck way out in the sparsely populated panhandle in Deaf Smith County, along a major route between Amarillo and New Mexico, was once a watering stop called Dean, Texass. It took the name of the family that occupied a small picket house (posts set into the ground, plastered with mud, and roofed with sod) in the late 1800's. The location was once an Indian campground with a reliable water spring adjacent to Palo Duro Creek. Mail service to the Deans and other settlers in the neighborhood was quite iffy. The solution was to create their own post office. So they did. Soon, they had regular mail service at least twice a week.
.
Thomas Dean became the first in 1892. What makes this particular post office weird is that it is a cave eroded out of caliche rock on the North bank of the Palo Duro Creek. Individual "boxes" were hand dug into the walls for the nearby settlers to come by and pick up their mail. It was operational until 1899.
.
.
DEAN POST OFFICE -- 1892 - 1899
.
Respectfully,
Gordon Lee
