1899
During the winter of 1899-1900, Isaac Patch (pictured above), concerned about the availability of reading matter, toured, by horse and buggy, the farms between Robbinsdale and Medicine Lake and got the required fifty signatures requesting rural free delivery of mail. It was started in 1900 under local Post Office Authority until October l, 1901, when the Federal Post Office Department formally approved the route, authorizing $500 per annum. The area was so large that two routes were established and Isaac Patch(above) and Charles Heiff were the first two postal men, delivering by horse and buggy. The Minneapolis papers, the Tribune and the Daily News, competed for subscriptions by offering free mail boxes as premiums—the Daily News offering blue and the Tribune, silver. The farmers had to mount them on posts by the road. Patch’s parlor was piled high with mail boxes waiting to be delivered; and his five year old daughter, Ina, remembers people waiting by their new boxes”with cookies for the mailman’s little girl who often rode along.
This post is part of a series based on the book Robbinsdale Then and Now by Helen Blodgett.