Post Offices – Page 2 – Life of Brian

Hi, I’m Brian and I’m A Postalphotoholic.

Monday, August 25, 2025

Klamath Machine & Locomotive Works

Yesterday evening I swore to myself that after my Mixed Berry Smoothie Bowl I was going to drive straight home. I shouldn’t swear. Oooh, look, there are three very rural post offices that I could get on my way over to I-5. Then because I really do have a problem, I decided to duck off the Interstate a few more times and snag 4 more. Today seven, total for the 3 days, eighteen.

: Butte Falls – Now, Google Maps has led me slightly awry before, but this one was a biggie. To avoid a road closure, it had me go way past the road and told me to get on a different Forest Service Road. Trouble was where I was supposed to turn, there was nothing but a wide spot on that side of the road. Undaunted I drove probably 60-70 miles to go the long way to this PO. (8/25/25)

: Tiller – Truth be told I didn’t see much other than 3 or 4 ranches along this road, how it warrants a Post Office I’ll never know. (8/25/25)

: Days Creek – Small town Oregon, you just leave the door to your truck open as you go in to get your mail. (8/25/25)

: Sutherlin – It was a Monday so I expected a few cars or people in some shots, but I was going to let this woman get in her car and then retake the shot. Unfortunately, right then, a big ol’ pickup up truck with a camper shell parked right next to me. You could hardly so the building anymore. (8/25/25)

: Oakland – Oakland was the first city to be placed on the state’s historic register, in May 1968. The city’s two-block business district consists of the original brick buildings built in the 1880s and 1890s. Stearns Hardware has been in operation since 1887, and has occupied its building since it was built in 1891 (8/25/25)

: Drain – The town gets its name from the its founder and politician Charles J. Drain, who donated 60 acres of nearby land to the Oregon and California Railroad in 1871. (8/25/25)

: Cottage Grove – This Post Office was the second of the day where one shot was all I got at it. Moments later a large yellow Nissan pickup with matching camper shell parked right next to me. (8/25/25)

On OR-227 between Trail and Tiller, I’m barreling along this wonderfully nice twisty road in the middle of nowhere. As I round a sharp curve at speed, there suddenly is a flock of wild turkeys walking across the road. Almost all of them got across before I got to them. The last one tried in vain to fly away, but I caught it right above the front driver-side headlight. It then bounced on the windshield right in front of me and exploded into feathers as it sailed over my head and hit the road behind me. No damage to the car, just a couple of feathers caught between the headlight and hood, but the local buzzards will be having turkey a few months early.

Sdrawkcab Og Ew

Sunday, August 24, 2025

Buckey at Brevada

We’ll start with the last one I took. I ostensibly came to Klamath Falls for that Smoothie Bowl from Brevada tomorrow morning, but I also wanted my route to take me through Crater Lake National Park so I could take a picture of their post office. That is the next one in reverse order.

Crater Lake – I was lucky to get this close to the building that houses the park’s post office. The National Park was hopping on a summer Sunday. (8/24/25)

While I was in the park, I stopped at a couple of overlooks and a couple of visitor centers. I bought a couple of postcards and a sticker for Buckey’s trunk lid. At my last stop the morning mist and smoke that had obscured the lake was starting to burn off, but for the first couple of photos you had to imagine that deep blue the lake is famous for.

: The Lake Is Starting To Look Good

: Starting To See Some Blue

: A Misty Wizard Island

: Imagine Under That Is The Bluest Lake

Before I left to head south, I captured the last post office in Eugene. Then I had breakfast right next door to the last of the three post offices left hanging out there on OR-126 on a ninety-mile out and back.

: Blue River – Note the naked trees on the peak behind the post office, this whole section of OR-126 along the McKenzie River looks like that. Must have been one big raging fire. (8/24/25)

: Vida – Vida was originally named “Gate Creek”, but this caused confusion with a community of “Gates Creek” in nearby Washington County, so the name of the postmaster’s daughter was selected instead. (8/24/25)

: Walterville – And people complain about nepotism in Hollywood, the Walterville post office was established in 1875 and named by the first postmaster, George Millican, for his son Walter. (8/24/25)

: Eugene – Somehow I missed this Eugene post office back in February. (8/24/25)

Sdrawkcab Og Ew is We Go Backwards backwards.

Sunday Fun Day

Sunday, August 17, 2025

Yesterday was a longer day, 300 miles and 8 post offices compared to today’s 240 miles and 6 post offices. But it sort of evened out because Saturday eastbound on I-84 was nicer than today’s westerly trip home. Although, if I could have swapped the order of I-84 and OR-74 which would have made the day finish up with some nearly zero traffic twisting and bobbing roads, today would have been a great drive.

: Pendleton -It’s population was 17,107 at the time of the 2020 census, which includes approximately 1,600 people who are incarcerated at Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution. (8/17/25)

: Pilot Rock – A nice small town just a dozen miles south of Pendleton on US395. (8/17/25)

: Heppner – The 40 miles from the beginning of OR-74 to this town I saw not one other car and there were a total of three ranches. (8/17/25)

: Lexington – This one was fun. I followed Google maps to a house on a corner with a 6-foot tall chain-link fence and an onery dog. The address was listed as 320 W Main, but the house had 102 on it. So I continues cruising the street until I found this place. The only indication it was a post office was the blue drop box and a 4″x4″ sticker on the right door. (8/17/25)

: Ione – I wonder how the citizens pronounce the name? Eye-one or eye-own or something else. (8/17/25)

: Arlington – This weekend’s last stop before getting back on the dreaded Interstate 84 heading west. (8/17/25)

This weekend’s haul took my post office tally to 252 out of the 390 total or about 65% done. There are around 90 or so left that are densely packed along the coast and the southern portion of I-5. The remaining 40-ish out east are widely scattered and will need several more long drives with more than just one overnight stay for each trip.

Been A While

Saturday, August 16, 2025

It has been almost 4 weeks since I’ve gone post office hunting. I’m overnighting in Pendleton, OR and will head home tomorrow. Today I checked off 8 of them and have saved 5 for tomorrow’s drive home. Today’s list in order of capture went Hermiston, Stanfield, Echo, Milton-Freewater, Athena, Helix, Adams, and Weston. Almost missed Weston. Looking at the area map on the phone, the normal Google saved icon became dots, so I didn’t see it. I knew when I set out that today’s haul should have been eight, and when I had only seven photos, I zoomed in to make the icons larger and found my missing PO. Funny because I saw the town name when I passed the road to it on my way to the furthest one and wondered how come there wasn’t a post office there. Well, there was.

: Hermiston – Its population of 20,322 makes it the largest city in Eastern Oregon, and I saw very little of it, just a quick photo and back on my way. (8/16/25)

: Stanfield – Just as I parked that white SUV pulled in. I waited patiently until the woman was inside before clicking the shutter. I you look closely at the door, she is still not in. (8/17/25)

: Echo – These two guys had told their wives they were going into town to check the mail. So they did, but then spent the next 30 minutes chewing the fat. (8/16/25)

: Milton-Freewater – To dash or not to dash. I saw several signs that hyphenated the town name and just as many that did not. (8/16/25)

: Athenea – This two-and-a-half-story-tall building was the tallest in town, and it didn’t have any competition. There were probably a half dozen buildings in town period. (8/16/25)

: Helix – There was a big ol’ farm truck sitting right in front of this PO and I was going to wait him out but gave up. When I got out of my car to walk across the street to take my photo, they started to pull out but stopped. He asked if everything was OK. I said yes and told him I was taking a picture of every post office in the state. To which he replied, “I guess I better get out of your way.” (8/16/25)

: Adams – It is the first post office in Oregon alphabetically. In South Carolina that distinction fell to Abbeville; there was no Adams, but Adams Run was number two in SC. (8/16/25)

: Weston – There was something going on at a big old house next door to this PO. I think I recognized a lot of Future Farmers of America jackets though. (8/16/25)

You didn’t think I forgot a Roadside America picture, did you? Turns out there is something called Cattle Drive, and it is less than a 1/2 mile from the hotel, so I walked over and took a few photos. While I was there I noticed lights on the ground, which possibly meant it would be illuminated at night. So, I went back after dark, and sure enough, it was lit up. The low-level lights made it difficult to capture a wide shot that wasn’t burnt out by light flare.

: Cattle Drive – Day

: Cattle Drive – Night

Post Office Mop Up

Sunday, July 20, 2025

I had originally planned to to get today’s 4 post offices as part of an overnight trip back to Klamath Falls, but when I got up this morning I almost didn’t go anywhere. Just couldn’t get motivated to to go all that way, spend a night in a hotel and drive back the next day. Instead, today I just drove a loop that was the equivalent driving to Klamath Falls, but I’m already home for the night.

: Camp Sherman – I’ve had a couple three close misses on this particular P.O.. but either I didn’t have the time to make the 10 mile round trip or the road was snow covered. (7/20/25)

: Powell Butte – Powell Butte is an unincorporated community in Crook County and named after the nearby Powell Buttes.(7/20/25)

: Prineville – Prineville is the county seat of Crook County. It was named for the first merchant to establish businesses in the present location, Barney Prine. (7/20/25)

: Warm Springs – Located on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation, the community is also known as the “Warm Springs Agency”. (7/20/25)

While I captured four post offices, I actually got to mark off five. The post office in the community of Brothers, which was on the list for capture today, has closed. I have now taken photos of 238 Oregon post offices out of the 390 in the state. Green marks are the ones I taken photos of, hover over the image and the yellow marks are one that I still need.

Don’t ask me why the Google maps for brian.the.red account shows as a flat map and the mr.miata account shows as if it a portion of a globe…

Post Office Updates

Sunday, July 13, 2025

After yesterday’s 15 post office flurry, I’ve photographed 234 out of the 391 in the the state. Which means I’m at 60%. Today I added those fifteen new photos to their respective galleries.

I tried to break up the nearly 400 post offices into 8 groups of around 50 each. Using the spreadsheet I went back and added up how many of the photos taken were in each of the eight groups. In order, Group 1 has 28 of 48, Group 2 has 30 of 49, etc. Group 6 has the highest at 38 of 50 for 76% and Group 8 has the lowest at 22 of 46 for 48%.

When you go to the Oregon Post Offices galleries page it shows right there how many photos are in the gallery and none of them are right. All fall short of how many photos should be in the gallery, With me adding yesterday’s photos the groups miss the total by 3, 5, 2, 7, 9, 2, 2, & 3 for a total of 33. All of those that need to be added so the galleries reflect what’s been done so far.

Tomorrow.

1 Car Wash & 15 Post Offices

Saturday, July 12, 2025

At the Car Wash

To eliminate what happened 2 weeks ago, me missing a post office and having to go back, today I wrote down the names of all the post offices I was after. And it was a good thing too because I would have missed Falls City. And not only would I have missed the post office, I would have missed getting the car washed by a girls softball team.

Today’s post office total of fifteen is the largest daily haul so far in Oregon. I want to say when doing the South Carolina post offices, there were a couple of days where it was in the twenties. But then again, South Carolina has about 150 more post offices and has 1/3 the land area, so everything is a lot closer. I did some chipherin’ and there is 1 post office for every 71 square miles in South Carolina, and Oregon has 1 post office for every 252 square miles!

Now I’ve got to go back and write something about each of today’s fifteen post offices…

: Amity – I’m going to take a wild guess and say this isn’t named after the island that a great white shark terrorized back in 1975. (7/12/25)

: Sheridan – Sheridan counts the prison population of the Federal Correctional Institution as part of the city’s official population. (7/12/25)

: Willamina – The town was named after Willamina Creek, which in turn was named for early settler Willamina Williams shortly after she fell off of her horse and into the creek. (7/12/25)

: Grand Ronde – The only thing of any substance in this town of 1,600 is the Spirit Mountain Casino. (7/12/25)

: Rickreall – Rickreall was often referred to as Dixie during the Civil War and for some time after because of the Southern sympathies of the local populace. (7/12/25)

: Dallas – Unlike Scio & Monmouth, I’m betting the founders of this town didn’t name it after where they came from. Folks from Dallas, TX, weren’t moving here in the 1840s. (7/12/25)

: Monmouth – Like Scio, this town took its name from the town the early settlers came from, in this case Monmouth, Ohio. (7/12/25)

: Falls City – I almost missed this one like I missed Odell two weeks ago, but this time I had written down all the POs I planned on photographing and realized I’d skipped it, so I went back for it. (7/12/25)

: Independence – Hooray for the red, white and blue. Red Ford Explorer, white Toyota RAV4 and a blue Mazda Miata. (7/12/25)

: Turner – My good friend Mark Turner from the ASCO days was a CNC programmer and machinist and in spite of his last name, he was more of a miller than a turner. (7/12/25)

: Aumsville – I don’t know how the residents of this town pronounce its name, but all I hear in my head is “alms for the poor.” (7/12/25)

: Sublimity – The blue lettering on the building goes sublimely with the blue of the Miata. (7/12/25)

: Stayton – Instead of my usual, standing across the street and clicking away, I backed off a bit to get the mural in the photo. (7/12/25)

: Scio – The town was named by one of the original residents, William McKinney. He used the name of his former home, Scio, Ohio. The Ohio village is, in turn, named for a Greek island called Chios; the Italian version of the name is Scio. (7/12/25)

: Jefferson – The first name for this locality was Conser’s Ferry, for Jacob S. Conser, an Oregon Trail pioneer of 1848 who ran a ferry across the Santiam River. (7/12/25)