Family Life

07.27.11 | Sarah Harnisch

 Pennsylvania stands to be third in the nation with the number of post offices closing, if the U.S. Postal Service plan to close 37-hundred stores goes through. The Keystone State is right behind Texas and Illinois, with 203 definite closures. There are about 900 post offices just in Western Pennsylvania. Thirty-eight of them are in the Alleghanies.  One-hundred twenty six of those, a bit more then 10 percent, are likely to close. A side note on this: if you've ever been to Philadelphia, one of the nation's earliest post offices, a building once owned by Benjamin Franklin, the first postmaster general, may be shutting down. It, too, is on the closure list. It's the post office in Franklin's district where you can have a letter stamped with his own original stamping machine.
   In New York, over 150 post offices are being eyed for closure. Some 75 of them are in upstate.
    If you want to see which post offices are closing in New York or Pennsylvania, simply go here and type in your state or zip code.