Good top of the week to you! Hopefully a great weekend is leading to a great start of the week for our loyal readers.

Recently, we came across a card that originated in West Jackson from the 1940s.  It was sent by what appears to read Postmistress Mrs. A. W. Magee. The destination for the letter–Mr. Leon F. Dow of Livermore Falls, Maine. With a postmark of June 30, 1941, the letter was sent on its 1,500 mile journey.

A few things are interesting about this card.

First, the card is addressed like no mailing today.

Take a look, there’s no street number, street name, or ZIP code  for either the sender or the addressee. Only a name, city, and state. ZIP Codes weren’t introduced until 1963, so its absence is understandable. But what about a street address, or even a street for that matter? They’re both missing, and we’ve come across other post cards to other places with the same name, city, and state formatting. Our guess it that letters at that time went directly from post office to post office as opposed to address to address. If you have the answer, feel free to let us know.

Another thing is that the stamp for sending this card cost a whopping 1 cent! My, my has inflation taken a toll on the cost of a stamp. Then again, this card was mailed 70 years ago.

Finally, comes the spelling of Gowdy. Research for the recently erected historical marker has indicated the community’s spelling as Gowdy, no “e”. However, the card above has the town spelled as Gowdey–twice! Once from the postmaster in the sender section and once in the cancelled stamp. The community was named after W.B. Gowdy, but his name appears in two different spellings as well.

Interestingly, the website from which this card can be found, www.postalhistory.com, has the Gowdey post office in operation between 1915 and 1941. That means that this letter was mailed in the last year of operation for that post office.

Perhaps the question of the moment is, what the heck is on the other side of the card?

P.S. If you’re interested in purchasing this card, you can buy it from www.postalhistory.com for $10.