Going smaller with PO Boxes

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Story Published: Mar 11, 2009 at 6:10 PM MDT

Story Updated: Mar 11, 2009 at 6:23 PM MDT

By Steven Pope

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SUGAR CITY - Sugar City is so small that 60-percent of the people living there are forced to have post office Boxes.

We received from a concerned channel 3 viewer, who didn't want to pay 50 dollars a year for mail. But fifty bucks is what you would have to pay for a size 2 post office Box here in Sugar City. But not everyone got the memo ten years ago, when the postal service started giving out free ones.

"This come about when we offered free boxes about ten years ago, and when we did that we sent out a letter to everyone that if they went to a smaller box, they could get it for free," said Post Master Rod Barber.

There's three box sizes , and the largest is a hefty 90 dollars per year. Living within a quarter mile of the post office means you're a group E customer which qualifies you for a free size 1 Box.

The Postal Service Manual explains why:
"Only one free Post Office box may be obtained for each potential carrier delivery point of service. Group E customers are assigned the smallest available box that will accommodate their daily mail volume."

Sugar city citizens say they don't mind walking down to the postal service, because if they had a mail box they'd have to dig it out of the snow. Other benefits include getting their mail earlier, the post office is open 24 hours a day. And each box is locked...

"Well the mail is secure here, at my house someone could come and pick it up, so I feel better about having a PO Box," said Robert Worrell.

There's also an intangible benefit according to Post Master Barber "Lot of people in this town like to come visit, they see their neighbors here when they don't get to see them any time else."

Kevin Hope agrees, "I like these people here, I like old Rod."

But even he doesn't like coming here for mail, "Well I think people would rather have a mail box, but it would take mail men forever to deliver mail all over in the country and houses are so far apart its not feasible to do that," said Hope.

Whether or not people like having a PO Box, in a small community, running into neighbors at the post office seems to keep everyone happy.

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