Birmingham Post Office
The Birmingham Post Office is a regional facility of the United States Postal Service which operates 26 individual post office locations in Jefferson County (all with ZIP codes beginning with 352). The enterprise is overseen by the Postmaster of Birmingham and currently employs 850 workers and handles 250,000 daily deliveries. The main downtown post office is located at 351 24th Street North.
Birmingham's post office was established on September 5, 1871, before the city was officially incorporated. In late September or early October 1874, the post office moved to a building on 2nd Avenue North nearly opposite of the offices of the Birmingham Iron Age. In 1884 the post office, headed by postmaster T. U. Green, was located at 2010 1st Avenue North.
The Wright Building on the northwest corner of 19th Street and 3rd Avenue North served as the location of the post office from 1883 to 1893, when a new United States Court House and Post Office was erected on the southwest corner of 2nd Avenue North and 18th Street. After four decades it was considered an impediment to progress and demolished. A grand new Birmingham Post Office and Federal Court was then built on the 1800 block of 5th Avenue North, opening in 1921. The post office moved to a new $12 million modern sorting facility on 24th Street North in the early 1970s. The 1921 building is now the Robert Smith Vance Federal Courthouse Building.
References
- "The Postoffice [sic] will be removed to 2d avenue [sic] next week into a building nearly directly opposite the Iron Age." (September 24, 1875). Birmingham Iron Age, page 3.
- Kent, Dawn (October 23, 2009) "Postmaster adds his stamp to city history." Birmingham News