{"id":5551,"date":"2026-03-27T21:15:24","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T21:15:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/?p=5551"},"modified":"2026-04-12T18:26:48","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T18:26:48","slug":"east-lansings-first-post-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/east-lansings-first-post-office\/","title":{"rendered":"East Lansing’s First Post Office"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"211
211 East Grand River Avenue, August 2021. Image source: BSAOnline.com<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A little commercial building on Grand River Avenue, just two stories tall and a single storefront wide, holds a significant place in East Lansing history\u2014and has a few tales to tell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It begins with the mail. In the early days of the Agricultural College, postal service was based at Lansing. There was simply not enough need for a separate post office. J. D. Towar<\/a>, in his History of the City of East Lansing<\/em>, gives a first-hand remembrance in this unusually detailed\u2014and rather picturesque\u2014description of the service:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Prior to 1884, Lansing was the post office for the college, and the mail was carried once a day during the college terms, by a student. The student walked both ways unless he was fortunate enough to catch a ride. In the winter, when college was not in session, members of the faculty resident on the campus took turns at bringing the mail from Lansing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The job of carrying the mail was considered one of the plums in the allotment of special jobs as it allowed the lucky student four full hours at eight cents per hour, in place of the three hours of manual labor on the farm or garden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The outgoing mail was collected from boxes in the dormitories and offices, carried to the Lansing post office, where the college mail was taken up, brought back to the college and distributed. The student mail carrier was commissioned to do sundry errands and make purchases for the students. His load of bundles on the return trip often exceeded in weight and volume his load of mail.<\/p>\nTowar<\/a>, p. 99.<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\"Postcard
Postcard with “Agricultural College, Mich.” cancellation, date unknown.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As the College grew, so did its correspondence. In 1884, the U.S. Post Office Department established a fourth-class post office at the Agricultural College and Robert G. Baird, Secretary of the Board, was appointed as the first postmaster. The office was literally a small desk operation within the Secretary’s office in the administration building<\/a> (now Linton Hall), and the postmaster was paid strictly on commission from stamp cancellations. Following Baird’s death at the College in August 1885, subsequent board secretaries Henry G. Reynolds and Ira H. Butterfield carried on as postmaster. Mail volume continued to increase, especially as the Experiment Station<\/a> began to publish and distribute its research bulletins, and the post office was quickly elevated to third-class status.1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Butterfield resigned as Secretary in 1899, he retained his appointment as postmaster and the post office was moved into a partitioned space in “the west half of the tool-room” of the Horticultural Laboratory<\/a> (now Eustace\u2013Cole Hall). Although it had a dedicated entrance and was said to be “well-lighted and comfortable,” this post office was inconveniently located and soon inadequate, as its revenue surged past the threshold of second-class status.2<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1902, Charles B. Collingwood<\/a>\u2014who, perhaps not coincidentally, had been a student mail carrier in the mid-1880s\u2014was appointed postmaster. An upgrade to the waiting area for the streetcar<\/a> became the “Post Office and Trolley Station<\/a>” and included rooms for both the post office and the bookstore<\/a>. Both continued to grow, so in 1910 the post office moved nearby to the first floor of the newly expanded Station Terrace<\/a>, and the bookstore took over the vacated space.3<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following Collingwood, who was in office when the postmark transitioned from “Agricultural College” to “East Lansing” in 1907, the postmasters were Bert L. Rosecrans (1909\u20131914) and Claude D. Aldrich (1914\u20131923).4<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1923, the Post Office Department gave up its month-to-month lease on the campus building and moved into East Lansing proper. The new-built brick commercial block at 211 East Grand River Avenue was erected by Benjamin Domboorajian, a local businessman and developer who was enough of a character to deserve an article of his own. Charles S. Wilcox was named as postmaster, and the post office moved into the first-floor space by mid-year.5<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The post office remained at 211 East Grand River for about eleven years, until the completion of a new, dedicated building\u2014now known as the “Old Post Office<\/a>“\u2014in 1934. During that time, it was finally elevated to first-class status, in 1928.6<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two interesting tenants shared 211 East Grand River with the post office in the building’s earliest years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In early 1923, some forty local members of the International Order of Odd Fellows organized a new lodge for East Lansing. It was installed as “College City Lodge \u2116 422” on April 21, 1923. By October that year, the Odd Fellows had rented the second-floor space of the post office building and outfitted it as a lodge room. They only remained there for a few years\u2014by 1927, they had moved west to a larger space in the basement of the Plymouth Building at 129 East Grand River, where they remained until consolidation with Ingham County Lodge \u2116 229 of Okemos in 1936.7<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile on Saturday, January 17, 1925, a “new, unique tea room” celebrated its grand opening in the basement of the post office building. The Green Parrot Inn was operated by the Beta Beta chapter of Alpha Phi sorority.†<\/a><\/sup> Offering homestyle meals and live music, it was open for lunch on weekdays, as well as for Sunday supper. The announcement in the Lansing State Journal<\/em>, in an upbeat and conversational tone, talked up the tea room with an oblique reference to the 18th-Century London coffeehouse where Joseph Addison, Jonathan Swift, and other intellectual luminaries of the day met to discuss ideas, write, and critique literature.8<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the lofty allusions, the Green Parrot Inn turned out to be very temporary. The Alpha Phi alumnae ball, scheduled for a month after the opening, was planned to benefit the tea room, but no further mention of it has been found by this author. By 1927, and likely a lot sooner, the basement was vacant again.9<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few years after the post office moved out, one of the more fondly remembered businesses of generations past moved in\u2014Washburn’s Smoke Shop. Owned and operated by Charles Washburn (1893\u20131973, M.A.C. ’17), it opened in 1915 in a small frame building nearby and moved through another Grand River Avenue location before arriving at this, its third and final site, in 1936. Not solely a tobacconist, the Smoke Shop sold newspapers and magazines, soups and sandwiches, and featured billiard tables and a soda fountain. For decades, it was a popular hangout for male college students. An emporium of cigarettes and pool tables sounds like the kind of trouble “Professor” Harold Hill might have warned against, but Washburn tolerated no profanity or misbehavior in his shop, and “helped many students over the years with both counseling and financing.” He would later reminisce that “in a certain way, the closing of the Smoke Shop was the end of an era in East Lansing. There just isn’t any other wholesome place where the kids can hang around. We used to like having them hang out there, but most people don’t any longer.” Washburn closed the shop and retired in 1960.10<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since then, the building has been home to a variety of businesses, including a men’s clothier, a vitamin and drug store, a short-lived furniture shop called Mostly Wicker, and several restaurants representing a wide range of cuisines. Since 2016, it has been Lou & Harry’s Bar and Grill.11<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n

  1. Beal<\/a>, pp. 381\u2013382. \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  2. MAC Record<\/a>, 4(27), 21 Mar 1899, p. 1. \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  3. MAC Record<\/a>, 8(8), 4 Nov 1902, p. 4. \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  4. MAC Record<\/a>, 15(26), 5 Apr 1910, p. 3; 19(16), 27 Jan 1914, p. 8. \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  5. Minutes<\/a>, 15 Sep 1920, p. 482. ELCL<\/a> 5(10), 1 Mar 1923, pp. 1, 6. \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  6. Towar<\/a>, p. 100. \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  7. ELCL<\/a> 5(17), 19 Apr 1923, p. 5; 5(43), 18 Oct 1923, p. 2. LCD<\/a> (1927), p. 825. LSJ<\/a>, 18 Oct 1936, p. 8. \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  8. LSJ<\/a>, 16 Jan 1925, p. 15. \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  9. LSJ<\/a>, 4 Feb 1925, p. 7. LCD<\/a> (1927), p. 825. \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  10. Kestenbaum<\/a>, pp. 138\u2013143. LSJ<\/a>, 3 Dec 1959, p. 57. \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  11. LSJ<\/a>, 2 Nov 1961, p. 50; 12 Jan 1968, p. 31; 8 Nov 1981, p. 51; 13 Feb 1986, p. 26; 14 Jun 1990, p. 66; 30 May 2000, p. 11; 6 May 2001, p. 19. \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><\/ol>
    1. † Alpha Phi were trailblazers at M.A.C.: they were the first women’s local society, founded as Feronian in 1891; first to “go national,” installing with Alpha Phi in 1922; and first to take advantage of the Board’s decision to allow women’s societies to live off campus, in 1923.\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/span><\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      A little commercial building on Grand River Avenue, just two stories tall and a single storefront wide, holds a significant place in East Lansing history\u2014and has a few tales to tell. It begins with the mail. In the early days of the Agricultural College, postal service was based at Lansing. There was simply not enough […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"[{\"content\":\"Beal<\/a>, pp. 381\u2013382.\",\"id\":\"6f445601-ef15-4916-9044-b6f5d91bb4e9\"},{\"content\":\"MAC Record<\/a>, 4(27), 21 Mar 1899, p. 1.\",\"id\":\"79fa5a15-4d52-4546-b9b0-b59f6eccf60f\"},{\"content\":\"MAC Record<\/a>, 8(8), 4 Nov 1902, p. 4. \",\"id\":\"ba49c03e-3b6f-41a4-9763-d0716ba726a8\"},{\"content\":\"MAC Record<\/a>, 15(26), 5 Apr 1910, p. 3; 19(16), 27 Jan 1914, p. 8.\",\"id\":\"ad0dfa90-24a1-46d6-a51e-77331172b635\"},{\"content\":\"Minutes<\/a>, 15 Sep 1920, p. 482. ELCL<\/a> 5(10), 1 Mar 1923, pp. 1, 6.\",\"id\":\"9b2fb455-aea2-49bc-8d51-abd25fd0a2a8\"},{\"content\":\"Towar<\/a>, p. 100.\",\"id\":\"7ff0000c-8e18-48fb-bfd5-38ba6bba8987\"},{\"content\":\"ELCL<\/a> 5(17), 19 Apr 1923, p. 5; 5(43), 18 Oct 1923, p. 2. LCD<\/a> (1927), p. 825. LSJ<\/a>, 18 Oct 1936, p. 8.\",\"id\":\"56c8a04a-d022-49dc-9bdb-1dcccd1a2678\"},{\"content\":\"LSJ<\/a>, 16 Jan 1925, p. 15.\",\"id\":\"55146ade-7968-4f58-942f-a3ce5d3ffe90\"},{\"content\":\"LSJ<\/a>, 4 Feb 1925, p. 7. LCD<\/a> (1927), p. 825.\",\"id\":\"bb37e3e3-866d-4bec-9b11-cc2ae96f5f64\"},{\"content\":\"Kestenbaum<\/a>, pp. 138\u2013143. LSJ<\/a>, 3 Dec 1959, p. 57.\",\"id\":\"ad757824-1ebd-40d4-99ba-6bce8a75231a\"},{\"content\":\"LSJ<\/a>, 2 Nov 1961, p. 50; 12 Jan 1968, p. 31; 8 Nov 1981, p. 51; 13 Feb 1986, p. 26; 14 Jun 1990, p. 66; 30 May 2000, p. 11; 6 May 2001, p. 19.\",\"id\":\"13b304f3-b3d9-44a6-968d-6ea2acd806aa\"}]"},"categories":[10,31,29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-losteastlansing","category-east-lansing-history","category-east-lansing-names","category-m-a-c-campus"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5551"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5704,"href":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5551\/revisions\/5704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevinforsyth.net\/ELMAC\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}