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Decades of delivery
Youngstown’s Postal Service ... from boom to bust
By Karl Henkel
YOUNGSTOWN
It’s no coincidence that Youngstown’s processing and distribution center drew the short stick and now faces pending closure and consolidation with Cleveland.
It’s no coincidence the job losses, which in Youngstown could approach 500, could be devastating to the region’s economic revitalization efforts.
It shouldn’t be any surprise, either, that a decision by the U.S. Postal Service will negatively impact the Mahoning Valley.
As a pseudo-federal government/private entity, the Postal Service always has had a less-than-favorable view of the Valley, even as far back as the 1920s, when Youngstown was one of the most thriving, steel-producing areas on the planet.
Youngstown has been low on the list for postal upgrades, run through the ringer when seeking funding and, now, slated for the chopping block.
Consolidations and mergers aren’t anything new, and past and present postal unions have fought them fiercely, much like today’s union in the wake of a Cleveland consolidation.
And despite the Postal Service’s best intentions, a long-standing obstacle always has been the federal government, which approves budgets and oversees the Postal Service but does not contribute any funds to the entity.
Sure, there’s been help, such as President Herbert Hoover’s approval for a new building here in the 1930s.
But in many instances — like present day — the fate of the major postal operations in Youngstown, a Mahoning Valley institution that dates back to 1861, rests in the hands of Congress.
SLOW TO THE PUNCH
It took the Postal Service mere months to complete its Area Mail Processing study of the Youngstown processing and distribution center, a move that can qualify as “quick.”
The Postal Service, which in its infancy stages — and its heyday — delivered mail to businesses four times a day, has been notoriously slow in its decision-making, especially when it came to Youngstown.
After a five-year period in the late 1920s and early 1930s, it took a President Hoover appropriation of $385,000 to jump-start plans for a new postal facility, which today houses the City Hall Annex at the southwest corner of Market and Front streets.
Youngstown, which at the time had its population swell to a record 189,000, not only had to wait a handful of years, but was also 100th on a preference list to receive funding for a new building, said then-Postmaster Edward Westwood.
But at that time, the new building was badly needed; the Youngstown Postal Service conducted 300 percent more business in 1929 compared to 1915, according to a statistical chart by then Youngstown Chamber of Commerce member H.S. Warwick.
The delay of the late 1920s and early 1930s, however, pales in comparison to the stall in the 1960s and 1970s, when the city tried to secure funding for yet another building.
Youngstown waited nearly two decades to get the OK from the federal government to build the current space at 99 S. Walnut St. that is bounded by East Federal Street, Front Street and South Avenue.
THE HISTORY
The history of the Postal Service in Youngstown is as lengthy as it is diverse.Though the first post-office building wasn’t around until 1861 — a log cabin on Central Square, where the Man on the Monument stands today — Youngstown has had some form of a postal system since 1801.
Before that, mail was delivered once every two weeks from Pittsburgh, which was an improvement, considering before 1801, residents had to travel to Pittsburgh to get their mail.
The postmaster position was first filled Jan. 1, 1802, by Judge Calvin Pease.
His position has been filled by 30 men and women — including William Rayen from 1818 until 1939, and Ruth E. Horner, Youngstown’s first female postmaster, from 1985 until 1989.
Service was bolstered significantly in 1856 as the railroad arrived and continued as roads sprouted, making areas more accessible. In 1900, the Postal Service began collecting mail on a house-to-house basis.
Parcel service started in 1913. What was the first package? A dozen eggs, all of which arrived broken.
Youngstown Postal Service bought its first motor vehicles — four Ford Model-T trucks — in 1919.
Mail delivery continued to increase, so much so that in 1944 the Postal Service had to hire the Chaney High School football team to help meet delivery demands.
Twice-a-day home delivery lasted through 1950.
The apex of modern-day Mahoning Valley postal work, however, despite a dwindling tax base, was the effort to build a new postal facility in 1969.
The $8 million plant, designed by P. Arthur & Orazio of Youngstown and George S. Rider Company Planner and Engineers of Cleveland, opened in 1977.
That building, which survived human feces-infested packages in the early 1980s, Atty. Don Hanni Jr.’s car smashing through the front window in 1985 and even housing a drug ring in 1989, will celebrate 35 years of existence this spring.
THE POLITICAL GAME
The decision — at least the official decision Feb. 24 — to shutter the Youngstown plant and possibly shift 200 jobs to Cleveland is contingent on the actions of Congress.
The federal government, which in 2006, the best year in terms of mail volume, instituted a massive pension prepayment requirement for the Postal Service.
If that mandate is overturned, the post office likely can avoid slashing 150,000 jobs and closing half of its processing and distribution facilities.
The issue, however, is that the 2006 measure passed so overwhelmingly.
Like it or not, the Postal Service always has been at the mercy of the federal government. The Postal Service, after all, is a constitutional requirement.
Here in Youngstown, things are still political, with a union sometimes butting heads with the Postal Service, but less so than in years’ past.
The position of postmaster, once a highly publicized, highly political title, has taken a back seat in county politics.
Back in the 1930s, it was A.W. Craver, county Democratic Party chairman and a North Jackson native who was born in a log cabin, who was named Youngstown postmaster.
That left a mad scramble within the party to fill his vacant position.
YOUNGSTOWN TODAY
The Youngstown processing and distribution facility today still resembles the plant from three decades before, at least in its structure. But inside, plenty has changed.
What used to be a hot spot for classroom visits and media photo shoots now has a prisonlike feel, due in part to heightened security after Sept. 11, 2001.
Outsiders aren’t allowed in.
Workers aren’t allowed out — at least during the day.
Workers can’t speak to the press on company time — though that hasn’t slowed Dominic Corso, president of the American Postal Workers’ Union Local 443 and the most vocal against the postal cuts.
Employees can’t take photographs of the inside of the plant, and all cellphones must be turned off upon entering the facility.
It’s almost unfathomable that this writer and a staff photographer made it into the facility with such ease shortly after the Postal Service officially announced the Youngstown closing.
It took all of 60-or-so seconds for a postal official to escort us out of the facility.
But before we left, the shop foreman handed us a slip of paper.
It was the number for the postal point-of-contact.
He works in Cleveland.
What a coincidence. It’s the city that will now sort Youngstown’s mail.