Post Office and Naming Town

To any fledgling pioneering community, the establishment of a post office is a proud moment signifying your settlement is here to stay. That is how local pioneers felt when Grand Ledge was awarded its Post Office on July 20, 1850. It had only been a few short years since the first daring families came to the dense forest of the area. Now the handful of settlers, still living in log cabins, had their own official Post Office.

As part of petitioning the government for the Office, a name had to be decided on for the hamlet. Edmund Lampson, Henry Trench and John Russell met at the log cabin of George Jones west of the village, at the corner of Oneida Road and Grand Ledge Hwy. Several names had been suggested by the town folk – Lampsonville, Woodville, Russellville, Rockville, and Ledgeville among them. . It was George Jones who declared “let us have a local name” and Russell agreed with him. They convinced the men that “Grand Ledge” would make a fine name for the new settlement.

Henry Trench was appointed the first Post Master and the first Post Office was an Official Mail Bag hanging in his log shanty near where the Opera House now stands. Mail had to be picked up in Lansing. The journey to Lansing was a long trek through the dense, untamed forest and no one made a regular trip of it. The Mail Bag was given to whoever happened to be going to Lansing, and the Lansing Office knew that who ever showed up with the Bag was authorized to carry the mail.

After a few years, Trench gave up the job and it passed to a series of local shopkeepers. Thus there was no permanent Post Office Building, just a Post Office Counter in which ever store was run by the Post Master.

J.S. Holmes was appointed as Post Master in 1872. Originally he ran the Office out of his wooden grocery store on South Bridge Street until the Great Fire of 1876. He then partnered with Michael McMullen to build the Union Block at 208-210 S. Bridge. The newspaper noted “Postmaster Holmes removed the Office into his new brick block on Monday last.  The boxes are very conveniently arranged, both for the accommodation of the P.M. and clerks and the public.  We now have as good an Office as there is in the county, and as near fire and burglar proof as could be expected.”

Wanting to concentrate his efforts as Post Master and Express Agent, J.S. Holmes sold his stationary and bookstore business to B.S. Pratt in 1884. The Post Office no longer needed to share space with any store goods. In 1891 J.S. Homes built the Holmes Block directly across the street at 211-213 S. Bridge and moved the Office there. About 1905 The Post Office moved again to the newly built Alexander Block at 108 E. Jefferson, where the bank drive-thu is today. The Post Office remained there until our current Office was erected in 1938.