Highway Post Office Bus

Oct. 27, 1958 Southeast Missourian

This highway post office bus was photographed as it reached the post office in Cape Girardeau. From the left are Archie Reid, assistant postmaster; Ira Bradshaw of Springfield, clerk on the truck; T.R. Regenhardt, Cape postmaster; Harlan Short, postmaster at Jackson; Bob Clark of Springfield, truck driver; Bern Looney, Norman Cornman, Ellis Thomure and Garnet Sanders, local postal employes. (G.D. Fronabarger photo)

Oct. 23, 1958 Southeast Missourian

4 Vehicles Will Expedite Mail In, Out of Cape

2 Rolling Postoffices, 2 Trucks Will Start Operations Monday

Postmaster Ted Regenhardt announced today that two highway postoffices and two tractor-trailer trucks will expedite mail service into and out of Cape Girardeau beginning Monday upon the cessation of service by Frisco night passenger trains 805 and 806.

The rolling postoffices will operate out of both St. Louis and Memphis, meeting at Sikeston, a turn-round point. They will be equipped similar to railway mail cars, with clerks riding the route and making up the mail as the rolling postoffices travel the highways.

The tractor-trailer trucks will move through from St. Louis to Memphis and from Memphis to St. Louis, the postmaster said, receiving pouches at the various stops on the way.

He and Assistant Postmaster Archie Reid reported that existing star route times and service will continue without change.

Under the new schedule, postal patrons who have northbound mail must have it posted in the postoffice by 5 p.m. to catch the new northbound highway postoffice. Mail posted in the postoffice between 5 and 5:45 p.m. will continue to be placed aboard the northbound star route truck for St. Louis leaving here at 6:30 o'clock.

Mail placed in the postoffice for northbound delivery after 6 p.m. must be posted before 10 o'clock if it is to meet the next night truck, they reported.

The Frisco Transportation Co. will operate the highway postoffices and the trucks.

Here is a previous blog about the old post office.

This previous blog tells about the 3-wheeled mailsters in Cape Girardeau.