Post Office: Ralph Hartman, Postmaster inside Sugar Grove Train Depot
Ralph Hartman, Postmaster inside Sugar Grove Train Depot
60 Maple Street, Sugar Grove, IL Until August 8, 1840, mail had to be taken to Naperville, fifteen miles away, and cost 25 cents to mail. A post office was opened in the Thomas Slater home which stood at the northwest corner of Galena and Route 56, where the exit roads are now. Fall of 1847, Marcus White became Postmaster at Grouse, the intersection of Scott and Harter Roads, and Isaac Silas Fitch was Postmaster at Jericho, the corner of Jericho and Mighell Roads. Then in August 1850, Samuel S. Ingham was Postmaster at Winthrop, Galena Blvd and Densmore Roads. By the late 1880s, the Post Office at Winthrop had been moved to Main Street near the railroad and all but the Grouse Post Office had been closed. Ralph Hartman was a station agent and postman when the Post Office was in the Sugar Grove Train Depot. The Sugar Grove Depot was removed in the 1970s. The familiar little red building had had the distinction of being the only depot on the Burlington Railroad to serve as both a train station and US Post Office. For decades, mail was picked up and dropped off in Sugar Grove by way of the Railway Post Office car, a common part of the passenger trains at one time. The station master would hang the canvas bag of out-going mail from a "crane", which was a hook on an arm suspended from a post along the tracks. In Sugar Grove, this apparatus was located on the railroad right-of-way adjacent to the West Hotel. The mail handler inside the rain car used a hook to grab the bag from the post as the train sped through town. The mail was sorted by mail handlers inside the train car, and later dropped off at the appropriate town, In-coming mail was imply thrown from the open door of the Railway post office car, and shortly after picked up by the station aster. There were only a few times in Sugar Grove when the bag got beneath the wheels of the speeding train, leaving the mail bag and mail in shreds. AmTrak did away with the mail sorters and since have carried only sorted bags of mail to their destinations. With the U.S. Post Office occupying a portion of the train depot in Sugar Grove, it was always the center of social gathering as the farmers came to town on their noon break to retrieve their mail and were joined by those who lived in the village. In the winter the farmers would gather around the huge pot belly stove in the center of the waiting area and catch up on the news. In warmer weather, they congregated outside the depot. The sound of the telegraph key could always be hear above their voices. It was situated on the desk which occupied the windowed area towards he tracks, and was the only direct means of communication at that time, between the stations and subsequently the train crews. Flags were used periodically to tell and passenger on a passing train about a message that had forwarded by way of the telegraph. Source: "Sin-Qua-Sip: Sugar Grove, A History of Sugar Grove Township, Kane County, Illinois" by Patsy Mighell Paxton. The Post Office building at 60 Maple Street, Sugar Grove, IL was built later. Now it is a commercial business. As of 2020, the current Post Office is located at 45 E Cross St, Sugar Grove, IL 60554.