#602 Article by Dr. Lavender re: First Post Office in Miami Beach
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{Jostage stamps to mail a letter cost only two cents in 1920,
but residents and businesses in Miami Beach had no post
office from which to buy them. Residents and businesses
received their mail by rural route delivery from Miami. Rural deliveries
and collections' were made daily except Sundays. The patron had to put
a receiving box at the required height from the ground and to apply at
the post office so that the carrier could "put such applicant on his list
for distribution."
The Miami Post Office was overwhelmed by recent growth.
"Conditions at the post office are becoming fairly intolerable," The
Miami Herald wrote in January, 1920. "For months there have been no
boxes for rent, and as a result, thousands of people are forced to get
their mail at the general delivery windows. They stand in long lines
that curve around in front of the other windows, and create the greatest
congestion." In mid-January, Congressman W. G. Sears already
had begun communications with the first assistant
Postmaster General in Washington, D.C., to either
enlarge the post office in Miami or establish sub-
stations.
It also was noted that the need for a post office
at Miami Beach "was never more in evidence,"
and that delays and annoyances were being
caused because people on the last half of the
route did not receive their mail until well after
In May, about the time that Pulsifer was announcing that
Miami Beach would have its own post office, the Miami Beach
Improvement Company, comprised of the John S. Collins
family including Collins' son-in-law, Mayor Thomas 1.
Pancoast, announced that it was giving the city three blocks of
land between 21 and 22 streets, from the Atlantic Ocean west
to Sheridan (now Park) Avenue. The land had been donated to
Miami when Miami Beach was founded, and had been
designated as a park for the city of Miami, although the land
remained unimproved and apparently little used as a park.
Miami and Miami Beach had been talking about a sale of
the park to Miami Beach, but instead the Miami Beach
Improvement Company got title back and announced it planned
to give the three blocks to Miami Beach. Soon afterwards, the
city announced that it planned to build a new municipal
building on one of the blocks on the west side of
Collins Avenue. Plans called for the new post
office to be located in the municipal building.
However, problems developed with the
donation of the land to the city by the
Collins family. At the city council meeting
of July 14, Mayor Pancoast explained that
he had expected the donation of the three
city blocks to present no problems, but
that at a Collins family meeting in New
Jersey there had been opposition. At the
council meeting of August 2, Mayor
Pancoast stated that the deed specified
that the land could be used only for park
purposes. Plans for the municipal building
were cancelled.
noon. It was argued that Miami Beach had
outgrown a rural route, and that hundreds of
prominent businessmen of the country who were
spending their winters in Miami Beach, along
with thousand of tourists, were being forced to
put up with inefficient servicemen.
On May 24, FJ.G. Pulsifer, post office inspector,
came to the Miami area to look over the situation, and
the next day announced that Miami Beach would have a
post office of its own. Pulsifer said he believed there were
about 1,500 people on the beach, and that it might be possible
to secure two letter carriers for the peninsular town. The official
population of Miami Beach, according to the city's first federal
census taken in January 1920, was only 644 people. But most
winter residents were not counted, and the city was growing
rapidly.
Pulsifer advertised for a well-located structure, with not less than
3,000 square feet, to begin operating as soon as the building could be
obtained and equipped. The City of Miami Beach was required to buy
and install the fixtures for the government to lease. It was expected that
the heavy correspondence carried on by the various land companies and
hotels would put the post office in the second class division. It also was
expected that establishment of the Miami Beach Post Office, as well as
one at Buena Vista, would help relieve the congestion, lack of boxes,
and.1ong lines at the Miami Post Office.
By early September, the post office
inspector had been to Miami Beach several
times searching for a building, with a building on
Lincoln Road being under consideration as the best
choice. However, the Lincoln Road building was not
selected for the post office. About mid-September
Mayor Pancoast received a copy of a letter written to a
United States Senator from the first assistant
postmaster general in Washington. "My dear Senator,"
the letter began. "I wish to inform you that the department
today accepted a proposal submitted by the Miami Ocean View
Company of Miami, Fla., to lease quarters for a classified
station to be established at Miami Beach at 1113 Fifth Street,
on or about December 1 next. The company is to erect a new
building and provide a room 40 feet by 84 feet, with complete
equipment, heat, light and safe, under a five year lease." The
letter was signed by J.c. Coons.
The Miami Ocean View Company had been formed in
1916 when J.N. Lummus and J.E. Lummus joined with Carl
Mayor Thomas 1.
Pancoast. Hasf
Matlack Collection
Photo 104679.
SOUTH FLORIDA HISTORY II
Fisher, Fisher's top assistant John H. Levi, and six others to
put together tracts of land on the west side of the beach, going
from Washington Avenue [then Miami Avenue] west to Alton
Road. Although Mayor Pancoast was allied with his father-in-
law, John S. Collins, in the Miami Beach Improvement
Company, one of the other major development companies, he
was given much credit for his indefatigable efforts and long
time scheme to get a post office.
The Miami Ocean View Company began work on the post
office on September 22 on the north side of Fifth Street, just
east of the Miami Ocean View Company building, between
Lenox Avenue and Alton Road.
The new building was to be constructed of concrete. Mail
was to be brought to the building on trolley cars. The post
office would be the fourth business building on Fifth Street.
The new County Causeway, supplementing the two-lane
wooden Collins Bridge, had opened on February 17, 1920.
The year 1920 was an important one for Miami Beach. The
County Causeway opened, an electric trolley started
operating, the city got its own electricity plant, the first
automatic telephone exchange opened, the first public school
was built, the first PTA was started, the first church was built,
the city's first large tourist hotel, the Flamingo Hotel, was
built, and a massive construction project of houses and streets
was underway.
Real estate sales were almost ten times what they had
been in 1919, the largest single percentage increase in the
city's history before or after 1920. The post office was a significant
symbol of this growth. Although the Fifth Street location was the
third choice, it had the benefit of being located at the gateway to the
city, a location that made the Old Post Office easily accessible to the
public as well as visible to people arriving from Miami.
As the new post office was being built, Levi was debating
whether to put offices or small apartments on the second floor over
the post office. Offices were more in keeping with the building but
there was a critical shortage of housing. Steel furniture, including
548 combination lock boxes and drawers, were shipped to the Miami
Beach post office in early November. The combination lock was a
new feature which relieved postmasters from continually having to
replace lost keys.
By early November, Levi had decided that the second floor
would have office suites, with nine large sun-flooded office rooms in
all. The builders believed that the location would make the offices
attractive to businessmen. A truck, rather than trolley cars, would
bring the mail directly from the train in Miami, and outgoing mail
also would go directly to the train without going through the Miami
Post Office. Miami Beach would have two deliveries a day by two
carriers from the train.
On November 17, it was reported that the post office would be
furnished and occupied within 20 days. The office furniture had been
shipped, but delayed in transit, and a tracer had been sent seeking
missing carloads of equipment. The furniture finally arrived by
December 1, after the car in which it was being delivered broke
down and men worked into the night at installation.
The Miami Beach Post Office in
1921, third building from the left,
on a busy day on 5th Street and
Alton Road, looking east.
Abrah Lavender Photo.
12 SPRING 1999
9fHE P{)scr ()I'I'IeE ()PENS
G{he Miami Beach Post Office opened on Saturday,
December 4, 1920. The hours of operation were the same
as in Miami, general delivery being from 8 a.m. to 6
p.m., and money orders from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The first postage stamp sale was made to little two-year-old
Lambert Lummus Rook, the grandson of J.N. Lummus, the city's first
mayor (1915-1918). Held up to the window by his mother, Mrs.
Emma Lummus Rook, and accompanied by his maternal
grandmother, Mrs. Lula James Lummus, he bought a stamp to send to
his grandfather, J.N. Lummus, who was in Hot Springs, Arkansas.
"The little child, of course, did not realize that he was taking part in a
historical event, another incident in the fast moving processes which
are building a city," The Miami Metropois opined.
Many people visited the post office to see the new equipment and
to engage boxes. Only seventy-two days had elapsed from the driving
of the first pile for the foundation until the opening of the post office.
Credit was given to Levi and to J.O. Schreffler, the building foreman.
Schreffler had been pushing to complete the building of the Star
Island Yacht Club buildin~, but city councilman Levi, in his capacity
, as vice-president of the Miami Ocean View Company which was
building the yacht club, had taken Schreffler away from the yacht
club and placed him in charge of a rush project for building the post
office. The clerk in charge, N. S. Songer, encouraged people to use
the post office, to help it make a good financial showing and justify
its being established.
Much mail was received, addressed simply to Miami Beach,
without any route or street number. Some of this mail was delivered
by checking newspaper announcements of the arrival of persons, and
the post office appealed to people to leave information at the post
office.
AJI[)JI[)RESSIN~ 9fHE IbEAeH
~y the time the post office opened, Miami Beach also had
established rural routes, but it had not been easy. Because
Miami Beach was getting its own post office, houses had
to be numbered. By early September, it was announced that Miami
Beach did not yet have mail carriers assigned, but that carriers were
planned for the more thickly settled areas. As attention was being
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given to the building itself, the city passed an ordinance in
September that houses on the east and north sides of streets
would have odd numbers, and those on the west and south
sides would have even numbers. The city engineer, Robert M.
Davidson, had the plans, and people were encouraged to
request their numbers and put them on themselves to speed
up the process. People did not respond voluntarily, so about
two weeks later the Miami Beach Council passed an
ordinance compelling property owners to put numbers on
their dwellings or be summoned to court, with the possibility
of a fine of not more than $25 or imprisonment of not more
than 30 days if people did not put up their street numbers. By
September 23, it was announced that there still had been little
compliance.
In early November, residents and businessmen were again
encouraged to put up numbers, for sale at 10-cent stores and
hardware stores.
"When the shift of the mail is made to Miami Beach for
free delivery it will not be the duty of the carriers or the
postmaster to locate persons whose houses are unnumbered, "
The Metropolis stated. Mail without a street address would go
into the general delivery window, and would have to be called
for at the post office.
On the day the post office opened, it was announced that
two regular carriers and one parcel post carrier, using
bicycles, and including both Star Island and Belle Isle, were
being hired. City carrier service began on Monday, December
6, for those people who had put up their numbers. Many
people still had not put up numbers or receptacles, and were
again reminded that their mail would be held at the post
office because no carrier was expected to knock and wait for a
response. That practice, rather than 30 days imprisonment,
seemed more realistic.
However, permission to discontinue Rural Route lout of
the Miami Post Office had not been received from
Washington, so rural delivery also would continue for a short
time. Postal users were encouraged to use Miami Beach
instead of Miami so that mail would not have to go through
the Miami Post Office. In addition to the three carriers, the
post office was staffed by two people. Soon after the routes
were operating, there was talk about having a "Miami Beach
Post Office Day," a day set apart for advertising the post
office and the city. "All people living in Miami Beach should
call at the post office and mail souvenir postcards of the
beach to their friends," The Miami Metropolis suggested on
December 14, 1920.
The slogan of the hour soon became "Mail your Christmas
packages at the Miami Beach Post Office," as the post office
soon approached its Christmas heavy-mailing season. Mayor
Thomas E. James encouraged every resident, every winter
SOUTH FLORIDA HISTORY 13
resident, and every visitor to patronize the post office. He
particularly encouraged the women of the city to use the post office
for purchasing of stamps and for mailings.
In an article with comments about the post office Arlie H.
Schmitt of the Toledo Apartments said the post office was the best
expenditure for advertising the whole Beach that had been done
since the causeway opened. "The location is right. People have to
pass the office on leaving Miami Beach and I believe that they will
be loyal enough to patronize the office," Lummus said.
A few days before Christmas, business at the post office had
exceeded expectations, but again people on the beach were urged to
patronize the post office so that it could make a good showing.
Meanwhile, the Miami Post Office was so jammed with Christmas
mail that double crews were working day and night and mail was
being sorted outside on the lawn and on
driveways.
However, in all the Christmas business at
the Miami Beach Post Office, there was not a
single night when parcel post deliveries were
not cleared up for the day before the office
closed. Some people from Miami "got wise"
and went to Miami Beach to mail a great bulk
of Christmas packages. On December 29,
Levi gave a contract for putting a new curb on
a walk at the post office, with plans then to
widen the street there so that cars could
discharge passengers to the walk in front of
the office.
In October, Mayor Pancoast had
expressed his concern about the name of
Miami Beach being better known. There had
been discussion about changing the name of
the Miami Beach Bay Shore Company, and
Pancoast had written Carl Fisher. "In all the
advertising we do on any of our property we
ought to be very careful to use the word
Miami Beach," Pancoast wrote. "For at the
present time we are located by our close
proximity to Miami, but in the future, Miami
Beach is going to be known as well, probably
better than Miami is or ever will be, and
therefore, I cannot see any reason for
changing our present name..."
This was a reversal from 1915 when the
name of Miami Beach originally was chosen
for the town. According to Pancoast, at that
time "Miami Beach" was chosen in order to
~
"hitch onto the Miami star which already was
in its ascendancy."
On November 19, The Miami Metropolis,
14 S P R I N G 1 999
under its "Miami Beach News" section, reported that William Stanton
of Ocean Drive had started a campaign to change Miami Beach's name
to Miami-by-the-Sea. Stanton felt that "Miami Beach" was
inharmonious, unfitting, and lacking in character, and he wanted the
name changed before the post office was established.
On December 1, The Miami Metropolis changed the name of its
Miami Beach news section to "Miami Beach By the Sea," describing
Miami Beach as the "Social Center of the Florida Peninsula in the
Very Heart of America's Greatest Playground" and "Where the
Atlantic Surfs to the Shore and Zephyrs are Laden With Constant
Delights." But, the name was not changed, and Miami Beach now had
its own mailing address. The city went from the southern tip of the
peninsula to 41 st Street, and had changed from a town to a city by
Florida legislative action on May 21, 1917.
This post card was sentfrom the Miami Beach Post Office on February 18,1928,
to Cleveland Heights, Ohio. Rasf Post Card Collection.
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This post card was sent from the Miami Beach Post Office on March 28, 1932,
to Bronxville, New York. RasfPost Card Collection.
....-
Ironically, as Miami Beach was getting its own post office, The
Miami Herald was editorializing that there should be a movement of
education started at once with a view of inducing the people of the
surrounding suburban towns to become component parts of Miami.
"Miami Beach, Coconut Grove, Lemon City, Little River should all
now become parts of that greater Miami for which we are working,"
The Herald wrote. "No spirit of provincialism should be permitted to
hamper the growth of the city and it is quite certain that a logical and
convincing campaign could be carried on to success to induce the
people of the surrounding towns to become one with us. They would
add thousands to our population, they would stimulate further growth
and would give the city a prestige second to none in the state."
· Although some other surrounding areas became part of the City of
Miami, Miami Beach maintained its own identity. The Miami Beach
. '"'...,,,.,.
Post Office \\iasfl major factor.in helping give the city an identity
of its own. This,.,building served as the post office until 1933.
Postal services were conducted in several temporary locations
until 1937 wh~h a new post pffice was built at 1300 Washington
In its early years,tl:1~ priginal post office also served as a
realty office for the Fisher and the Lummus brothers. It later
became the Robert Reilly Hotel, and in recent years had been used
for an awning shop, a motorcycle store, a watersport shop, and a
furniture store.
9fHB JlDBMOLI9r:ION
On July 1, 1997, the Historic Preservation Board of
Miami Beach reviewed and approved a preliminary
report, prepared by the staff of the Planning, Design
and Historic Preservation Division,
recommending the designation of the
Old Post Office as a historic site. On
October 23, 1997, the Historic
Preservation Board held a public
hearing and unanimously approved a
motion to recommend the designation
of the Old Post Office as an historic
building and site to the Planning
Board and City Commission. The
report noted that the Old Post Office
clearly embodied the distinctive
characteristics of the local Masonry
Vernacular style of architecture at the
height of its bloom in 1920, prior to
the arrival of the fashionable
Mediterranean Revival style so
favored thereafter by Carl Fisher.
"The Old Post Office commanded a
presence and scale new to Miami
Beach's inventory of public
structures...Designed in the Masonry
Vernacular style, the Old Post Office
is one of the few remaining high style
examples of one of the earliest
fashions of architecture in Miami
Beach from the first land
development period," the City of
Miami Beach stated.
On November 5, 1997, thirteen days
after the meeting of October 23, and
before the city could finalize its
expected approval of the Old Post
Office as a historic building and site,
the Old Post Office was demolished.
.SFH
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SOUTH FLORIDA HISTORY 15