Thursday, March 13, 2014

Day 43–Postal History Foundation, Tucson, Arizona

Ron is always able to find unique places for us to visit and the Postal History Foundation is certainly one of those places.

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“The Postal History Foundation”

“The Postal History Foundation has the only formal museum and library in the Southwest dedicated to U.S. Western postal history. It celebrates the historical settlement of the West through the remarkable stories of the Pony Express,historic postal stations and the railroads. Its collections, photographs and artifacts are unique to this often-overlooked part of American history. The Postal History Foundation was one of the first organizations to reach out to the asthmatic children who were sent to Arizona for health reasons over 40 years ago. Our volunteers saw that these children were removed from traditional school settings and brought the world of stamps and postal history directly to them.  Thus began its nationally-recognized Philatelic Youth Education Program, which continues to operate today. The Foundation is a treasure-trove of millions of postage stamps and educational materials for youth which open infinite doors to learning! “

Paul, our tour guide was well versed on all things postal and was very interesting. We learned how the mail was delivered from moving trains and how bags of mail were picked up as the train passed through towns.

The Post Office below is  an antique from Narco, Arizona. 

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Here  provide educational opportunities for students around the world. We learned more about the post office, mail services and stamps that one could not even imagine. The PHF receives donations of  millions of stamps every year and the volunteers sort, soak and file all the stamps.

Below, Paul is evaluating the stamps that were being donated to PHF. image

Volunteers sorting out the stamps.

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Once finished at the Post Office , Paul brought us to the Slusser Memorial  Library where there is also all things stamps!

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It was a very interesting tour and we do enjoy learning something new on a regular basis.

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