Postal Site Committee, 1976

Did you know that in the 1970s, the United States Postal Service planned to move the Litchfield Post Office from its current location?  They cited inadequacy of available parking as one reason, and claimed that the move would not adversely affect the Litchfield Historic District.  Many of Litchfield’s citizens felt differently.  The Litchfield Board of Selectmen appointed a Postal Site Committee of seven members charged with developing alternative sites and holding public hearings, among other things.  The committee members were David M. Skonieczny; David F. Gurniak; C. H. Huvelle; William G. Miller; Jacquelin D. J. Sadler; Bruce Mason; and Nan F. Heminway.

After several months of various proposals, a plan to renovate the existing facility, and to provide parking for postal patrons in the town parking lots, the Postal Service agreed to retain the current location.  It did not hurt the cause that part-time Litchfield resident S. Dillon Ripley was serving as Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.  He wrote directly to the Postmaster General of the United States suggesting that to move the post office would be inconsistent with federal and state historic preservation.  He went on to point out the social ramifications of the move, stating “It is the thought of many of us concerned with the future of Litchfield that to remove a core element, such as the Post Office from this active, still relatively vibrant center of the Historic District would be to doom the town to a kind of museum status, for stores would gradually fragment and draw away from the town into nearby shopping malls.”  He goes on to ask the postmaster to give the matter his personal attention, and encloses a copy of a letter he wrote to Senator Ribicoff, presumably in the same vein.

The combined force of Litchfield’s residents helped to maintain the Post Office where it is today.  Nan F. Heminway’s papers document this, and are a good example of how the Society is striving to document the more recent past.  If you have 20th Century records that document Litchfield’s history, please consider donating them to the Historical Society!