Harding County Post Offices - Buffalo, SD
Posted by: 
YoSam.
N 45° 34.864 W 103° 32.781
13T E 613405 N 5048530
In a very neat park in this small town in NW South Dakota. Full of statues, markers, and history.
Waymark Code: WMPE2X
Location: South Dakota, United States
Date Posted: 08/16/2015
Views: 3
County of marker: Harding County
Location of marker: Canam Hwy (US-85/SD-20), Centennial Park, Buffalo
Marker erected: July 3, 2009
Marker erected by: Harding County Chamber of Commerce
Marker text:
Wherever American people live, they take for granted their right to receive their mail and expect "Uncle Sam" to provide them with the service.
The mail eventually got here when the broad prairie was welcoming the first new straggling cow punchers who came here with herds of Texas cattle. They set up camps and round-up outfits and their mail would get to Deadwood, over 100 miles to the south in the Black Hills, or Dickinson, North Dakota, over 120 miles to the north. It was then carried the last stretch to this area by saddle horse, team and wagon, stage coach, or by "whoever" happened to have an idea of the whereabouts of the addressee and took the mail along with them to help reach its destination.
The first mail carried by government men was from Minnesela to Camp Crook. As the area became more thickly settled, many small post offices were established to serve the growing population.
Mail was distributed as soon as the settlers could be informed of its arrival in the county. The mailman's regular arrival at the prairie post office signaled the gathering of homesteaders and honyokers, who watched up the trail for the mailman who was the carrier of news, both local and distant.
The mail carrier always enjoyed a special sort of distinction as is job was of far greater importance then merely to bring sacks of letters and parcel post. He brought word of events in the distant communities over the horizon. He brought hardy pioneer minded passengers into the county, and took discouraged and disillusioned adventurers out. He brought telegrams, mailed from the railroad station, usually with a sad message, and often was accompanied on his return trip by the recipient on his way back to the railroad and back east - called by family sickness or death.
Throughout the years, the mailman's buggy, later his "fliver" (car), or pickup - brought necessities from the stores in town for folks on the farms and ranches. He fought weather and nearly non-existent roads to make his appointed trip on schedule, and when snow or rain closed the regular access route, he laid out a new one.
Perhaps nothing else over the span of 100 years has continued with such regularity and stability as Uncle Sam's mail service to this prairie country.
Post Offices in Harding County:
Amburn: 1913-1915
Anvil: 1911-1912
Ashcroft: 1889-1919
Bloom: 1909-1921
Bratsberg: 1913-1921
Buffalo 1909-open
Bullock: 1011-1957 [sic-believe should be 1911]
Cadyville: 1911-1913
Cammack: 1911-1918
Gustave: 1899-1954
Harding: 1896-1965
Karinen: 1907-1953
Ladner: 1910-1965
Line: 1911-1920
Lone Butte: 1910-1911
Ludlow: 1896-2003
Mainville: 1915-1916
Murchison: 1910-1935
Nashville: 1884-1896
Oinas: 1921-1921 (Jan-Sept.)
Owatoma: 1909-1914
Penville: 1908-1919
Plateau: 1910-1919
Ralph: 1908-open
Redig: 1910-open
Reva: 1896-open
Rushville: 1911-1912
Sky Ranch, CPO: 1964-open
Slim Buttes: 1910-1933
Sunset: 1889-1890
Swartwood: 1921-1923
Watson: 1908-1912
Willert: 1909-1952