Yesterday's News: Waiting for the Mail (First published August 1998)

In this modern world of telephones, faxes and emails, the joy of letter writing has almost disappeared. We've become too reliant on the instant feedback of the internet. In the 1800s, however, residents of Boulder County anxiously awaited the stagecoach, afternoon train, or the rural mail wagon to bring letters from their families back east.

Establishing a postal system to serve homesteaders along the Front Range was an impressive accomplishment by the U.S. Post Office Department. New settlements eager to establish their own post offices were required to complete detailed forms describing their geographic locations. Imagine pinpointing your exact position on an 1870s map of Boulder County. Because no names or numbers had been assigned to the few roads of that period, geographic landmarks were used instead.

Hoping to become Niwot's first postmaster in 1874, Samuel Dobbins relied on postmaster Royal Hubbard of Longmont to submit the application for him. After stating the Section, Township and Range, Hubbard described Niwot as three-quarters of a mile south of Left Hand Creek and 150 feet west of the Colorado Central Railroad tracks at Niwot Station. Since the young settlement had not yet been officially platted at that time, the form referred only to the railroad section house and the 150 rural families who would be served by a new post office.

Once Niwot was established and a depot was built west of the tracks, local mail began arriving by rail. Bags of mail were dropped onto the depot platform twice a day as the train passed through town. Outgoing mailbags were hung on a pole beside the track so that an agent could snag them with a hook and swing them aboard. This arrangement continued until the 1930s.

Niwot's post office changed locations many times over the years and functioned from a simple counter and mailboxes at the rear of a store. Only when it moved in about 1943, from Reverend Taylor's grocery store to the empty bank building across the street, did it expand to an entire structure. After Howard Morton purchased the building years later, he discovered lists of early postal patrons in its safe, along with an official 1892 directive outlining proper disposal procedures for used or defective mail bags and locks.

The Niwot depot has been gone since 1958, and the post office moved to its permanent Murray Street location in 1968. But Niwotians continue to walk there each morning, stopping to visit with friends along the way. Some things never change.