How the US Postal Service put rural America on the map

Trinity Center, California 
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2018

Hailey Branson-Potts reports in today's Los Angeles Times, from Peanut, California, in Trinity County.  The lede follows: 

The people who lived in the rugged Northern California mountain hamlet called Salt Creek wanted their very own U.S. post office.

It was the early 1900s, and getting the mail had become such a chore for this speck of a town deep in forest, about 100 miles south, as the crow flies, of the Oregon border. The journey to the nearest post office in Hayfork — a seven-mile horseback trail ride near the eponymous creek — could take several hours.

Besides, a bona fide post office would, quite literally, put the community on the map.

But Salt Creek’s application was rejected by the U.S. Postal Service, which asked for a single-word town name. An exasperated local school teacher explained the dilemma while visiting the postmaster in nearby Weaverville, who was snacking on a sack of goobers.

“The postmaster was gnawing on some peanuts, and he half-jokingly said, ‘Let’s name it Peanut,’” said Jim French, a board member for the Trinity County Historical Society.

The town got its post office, and thus was born Peanut, Calif.

Branson-Potts quotes Daniel Piazza, chief curator at the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum, who explains how the Board of Geographic Names, created by the federal government in 1890 to standardize place names.  Its standards were carried out by USPS: 

The folklore and legend of towns all over the U.S. is they blame their name on the post office. They say, "The post office didn’t like our name. They changed our name." It wasn’t really the post office; it was the Board on Geographic Names, but as an agency of the federal government, the post office was obligated to enact their order, and it was up to the locals to raise a stink and get their name changed.

I've written lots of posts about post offices over the years, featuring many photos of post offices past and present.  Just search "post office" in the search bar here on Legal Ruralism.