Mr. Lester T. Fargher (in 1967) relates his memories of the Freeport Post Office --

I remember that one day, in the lobby of the present Post Office I met Mr. George Ladd Munn, who was very much older than m e, but who like me, had been born and raised in Freeport. I asked him if he remembered the "old" post office. "Oh Yes," said he, "it was up at the next corner in the Wilcoxon Building." "No, I said the 'old' post office! - the one back of the Fry Block on Chicago Street." ANd he had no recollect whatever o fit. WHy then should I remember it, and remember being in it when I was just four years old?

The building in which this earlier Post oFfice was located was back of the Fry Block and I think it was also a part of the Fry property for its second floor was reached from the stairway on the Chicago Street side of the Fry Block. Its first floor was perhaps four feet above the sidewalk level, and broad wooden steps out on the sidewalk space led up to it. I do not know if the Post Office occupied all or half of it, for I recall that later this floor was divided into two small stores and that much later the floor was lowered but was still divided.

History says that Mr. Thomas Wilcoxon got a contract from the Postmaster General and signed a four-year lease for a suitable space in a building which he proposed to erect at the southeast corner of Van Buren adn Bridge (now Exchange) Street. From this contract made in 1879 we must presume that the Post oFfice was moved to that location in 1880.

No doubt this was a very convenient and commodious place for it, and having a side door, opening from Bridge Street into the work room, it was convenient to pass out, or take in, the mail bags. And since this was many years before large magazines, mail order catalogs and parcel post, all of the mail came in the locked bags. It all arrived and departed on railroad trains and the regular conveyance between the depots and the Post Office was the baggage wagon from the Bus Barn which was on the opposite side of Bridge street, and juat a little way down the same block.

I can remember the layout of the public room, with the numbered box cases, or pigeon holes, projecting into it so that there was one call window in front and one on each side. ALongside of the south call window there was quite a section of metal doored lockboxes. In the years when I attended First Ward School, I culd stop her on my way home to see if there was any mail in Box 981,which was the number assigned to my father. I think that there was a small fee to be paid for a box, and a larger fee for a lockbox. After some years there was a change made, part of the lobby was partitioned off, and two call windows installed for money order and registered letter service. I well remember Mr. Wm. S. Best and Mr. Thomas Gemmill working at these two windows.

There was always a change of postmasters with every political change in the Administration in Washington. There were no civil service laws or regulations, so the incoming postmaster could hire and fire employees at will. ANd when the free mail delivery came to Freeport even the carriers were not sure of keeping their jobs when there was a political change. However, some of them did stay in service for a long time, and on of these was Mr. John Hogan, who for all of his years on the force wore Badge No. One. There were then only a few men employed on inside work and I doubt that there was any of them on night duty. Carriers sorted and arranged the mail for their own routes and made two deliveries each day. I think that they also took the mail from the street drop boxes, which were then more numerous than they are now.

Postage on a letter had been three cents but I think that it was in my boy-days that it was reduced to two cents, where it remained for many years. Postcards were only one cent and for soem years there was a second and larger size card which sold for one cent. It was one of these larger cards which I mailed on January 2, 1894 and which came back to me on May 15 of the same year after going aroudn the world, being remailed in three other coutnries, with new postage affixed, and never getting out of the name of Fargher. The Post Office remained in the Wilcoxon Building until the COntress appropriated funds for the erection of the present building (1967) which was erected in 1902 and has since been greatly changed. This building also housed the Western Division of the United States Circuit Court for Northern Illinois.