The Cedar Mill “Post Office”

After the postal station in the old Reeves General Store closed in 1904, Cedar Mill was without a post office until the mid-seventies, when Odus Bales had another of his great ideas. He’d seen post office contract stations in some stores of the King Super chain. He reasoned that putting one in his grocery store would bring in customers and provide a useful service to the community. The first postal contract station opened around December of 1979 in the store when it was located where Walgreen’s is now.

Randy, Cheryl, Sue and Debbie will not only efficiently help with your mail, they'll probably also make you smile!

It moved with the store into the space it now occupies, to the west of the front entrance. The Contract Station offers all the services of a full-service Post Office except for cashing Money Orders, sending COD items, and accepting credit cards for payment.

During the holiday season, the long lines of people waiting to mail parcels can stretch into the shopping areas, but store manager Butch Turner doesn’t mind. “We really see the Post Office as a big asset to the store, and our employees just work around the crowds,” he says.

Cheryl Jerome and Debbie Helbig have been sharing management of the Contract Station since 2002. They, like all the employees of the Contract Station, are employees of Bales Thriftway. Cheryl has worked at the Station for eight years, and Debbie for nine. They both live in the area.

Co-manager Debbie Helvig puts mail into the Post Office boxes

Only one of the employees has worked for the Post Office—Randy was a mail carrier and, “really taught us a lot,” comments Cheryl. Other employees are Cyndee, who’s been there four and a half years, like Randy, and Sue and Linda who work part time. They like the new owners of the store, and said that benefits and vacations increased when they took over.

The Contract Station has 440 Post Office boxes, but there’s always a waiting list to get one. Costs range from $50 per year for small ones to $144 for the largest. There’s some turnover, so if you’d like to have a safe place to receive your mail, get your name on the list.

Because it’s a Contract Station, they charge the same rates as a regular Post Office. The “Postal Annex” stores are allowed to charge more for stamps and parcels.

They don’t take credit cards for payments, because the credit card companies charge too much and Thriftway doesn’t want to absorb the cost. Stamps can be bought at the checkstands with credit and debit cards, however.

Mail is picked up at 1:00 pm and 5:30 weekdays and after 3:00 pm on Saturdays. The station is open from 7:00 am to 5:30 pm Monday through Friday, and 9:00 am to 3:00 pm Saturday.

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Publisher/Editor:Virginia Bruce
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