A Fight for Post Offices and Towns’ Souls

Along with the residents of other tiny towns across the country, from Challenge (CA) to Economy (IN), the people of Fox (AR) learned last summer that their post office was being studied for possible closing by the United States Postal Service. It was one of the more than 3,600 deemed by the postal authorities to have too little a workload — less than $27,500 annual revenue is one such measurement — or to be too close to another office to justify keeping open by an agency that is billions of dollars in debt and facing a steeply and steadily declining revenue stream. The response, here as elsewhere, has been swift. Letters have been sent, petitions drawn up. People have taken day trips to their representatives’ offices, bringing so much political pressure that Congress persuaded the Postal Service last month to declare a moratorium on the closings until May.