Postoffice Located On Corner Main And Catherine

POSTOFFICE LOCATED ON CORNER MAIN AND CATHERINE

Now Let Everybody Turn in and Work for a $200,000 Building

Local Postoffice Receipts Would Pay For It in Five Years --- The Street Railway Helped Decide the Location

The site of the new postoffice building has been finally determined. Assistant Secretary Taylor of the Treasury department has decided on the recommendation of Special Agent Read, who visited the city some weeks ago, to accept the bid of J. E. Beal for the property located on the corner Main and Catharine srteets occupied at present by the Polhemus livery barn and Nash's saloon. The price in the bid was $10,000. Mr. Beal is in Detroit today and could not be seen but it is understood that the options on this land which he sells to the government for $10,000 bring the cost of the land to him up to $12,500. He also agreed to buy the property between the site and the present postoffice of the Abraham Polhemus estate, which will give him control of all the property on that block and will keep out saloons.

The buildings on the site chosen are to be removed upon 30 days notice from the government. The appropriation obtained by Congressman Smith was for the location only so that the government will not need the land until after an appropriation is obtained for a government building.

Many of the business men seem to be satisfied with the location but the majority of the expressions of opinion from the first, sixth and seventh wards especially has been very much against the selection. It is improbable, however, that any tangible form will be given to this sentiment.

The thing to do now is to pull for an aprropriation for a building of not less than $200,000. With the growth of the Ann Arbor postoffice in the past ten or fifteen years as a criterion the building must be built with an eye to the future. At present provision must be made for 15 letter carriers and six rural mail carriers. Floor room must be provided for double this number. This means more than double the floor space of the present postoffice, which is entirely inadequate for the present needs. A $200,000 building would be paid for out of Ann Arbor postoffice receipts in five years. Hence $200,000 is the least appropriation which should be sought.

Now that the battle is over it may be said that one of the main arguments affecting the mind of the special agent who located the postoffice seems to have been the fact that the site selected was on the street car line. The only other site so offered was by Judge Cheever at the corner of William and Main and not many people saw the agent in behalf of this site.

Mr. Read told a gentleman here in conversation over the future prospects of postoffices that he believed that eventually most of the heavy local mail would be carried on the suburban lines and this being so the postoffice should be located with reference to them so that the mail would be delivered at the postoffice without cost to the government for cartage. He instanced as an example of the tendency of the railroads to look after the mails between the large cities, the fact that while all mail trains used to stop here, some of them now go through Ann Arbor without stopping. The mail facilities of Grass Lake, Chelsea and Dexter, which are now particularly bad would be made excellent when the suburban lines are developed and express cars put on them.