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Red-Letter Day for Post Office in Texas

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Associated Press

After 142 years, the Jonesville post office finally has outgrown T. C. Lindsey’s general store.

The post office is among the nation’s oldest in an original site and has been used several times as a movie location because of its old-fashioned look. But stardom doesn’t turn the head of its postmaster, who once refused to let a film crew take down the American flag flying over the building.

Now it’s combination-lock boxes, hand-sorter slots and original hand canceler will all soon be part of the past. Land for a new building has been selected about 500 feet to the north, and the postal department is getting ready to take bids.

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Town of About 400

Postmaster Reba Nolan says she hates to move out of the colorful general store that draws visitors from across the nation, but she says a new building is an absolute necessity for this East Texas town of about 400.

“We’re bursting out the seams,” Nolan said. “I’m literally crawling over the mail to get out the door.”

But Nolan, who has been postmaster for four years, says she hopes the general store’s owners will keep the post office intact as a well-preserved page of American history.

Nolan still cancels Jonesville mail with the post office’s original hand canceler. Also intact is an old-fashioned service window with metal bars that has been featured in several movies.

The post office was once saved from closing by Nolan’s predecessor, Emma Vaughan.

Only One Qualified

Vaughan, whose husband owns the general store and still operates it, said she took the job in 1949 after learning that she was the only one in town with a Civil Service rating.

“I had to take it because I was the only one that was qualified,” Vaughan said. “We knew that if it closed, we’d never get another one. I agreed to keep it for six months--but I stayed 38 years.”

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She initially made $1,000 annually as the Jonesville postmaster. Vaughan said her salary had increased substantially by the time she retired.

Vaughan said she hates to see progress force the post office out of her husband’s store but said her family is part of the reason it has to move.

“My son owns an oil company and his mail volume has really increased,” she said.

Nolan is only the fourth Jonesville postmaster since World War I. She had a run-in several years ago with the people filming a remake of “The Long Hot Summer,” which starred Don Johnson, Cybill Shepherd and Jason Robards.

Drew Line on Flag

She said she let the production crew pretty much have the run of the post office, but drew a hard line when she saw them taking down the post office’s American flag.

They explained the halyard was clanging against the flagpole in a brisk Texas wind and was ruining the movie’s sound track. They begged her to let them take it down, but she was staunch in her refusal.

“I told them they could just have someone shinny up the pole and hold it down if they wanted it quiet, but it wasn’t coming down,” she said.

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