Title

Post Office Desk

Creation Date

1856 – 1890

Description

Wooden pine desk, has a slanted top (bad crack in it) front legs are 36" high and rear legs stand 46" high. One drawer in center. Slant top opens and there are 12 pigeon holes...one for each of the original settlers in Bethel. This desk was the "First Post Office" desk used at Bethel, 1856-1890 during stagecoach days. Stagecoach ran between Anoka and Cambridge. James Cooper built his homestead in 1855 and his house was stagecoach stop and P.O. After the desk retired from postal work in 1890's it remained in Cooper household until 1983. March 22, 1992 interview with Ruth Gardner as told to Jean Smith ACHS employee: "James and Rebecca (Dyer) Cooper had the Post Office in a corner of their living room. The stagecoach stopped at the Cooper's on the way from Minneapolis the stage came twice a week. Rebecca fed the stagecoach driver; James fed the horses. Sometimes horses were changed here. Later Leland Cooper and Amanda his wife lived in the house of Leland's parents. Leland used the Post Office as a desk. Leland Cooper told his daughter Ruth Gardner stories about the Post Office. Ruth Gardner never lived in the James Cooper house. She had married before her parents moved into the house. Ruth remembers her grandfather James Cooper died when she was 7 yrs. old. He lay in a casket in the parlor of his home. Then the casket was carried by horse and wagon to the cemetery. This desk was the "post office" at Cooper's Corner in Bethel from 1863 to 1899. Cooper's Corner was-and still is-at the intersection of Highway 65 and County Road 24 in today's East Bethel. James Cooper settled on the northwest corner and built his first house there in 1854. He returned to Pennsylvania to gather his family and move them to Minnesota, but when they arrived, the house was destroyed. They built a sod house to get them through until they could build a new house from hand-sawn lumber held together with wooden pegs when they didn't have any nails. The Post Office was established in the Cooper home in 1863 and the Cooper home was the stagecoach stop on the route between Anoka and Cambridge. James Cooper was named postmaster. Stories tell of the 12 families living in the area, each having one of the slots in this desk. Stamps and other supplies were kept in the small drawer at the bottom of the desk. When Hugh Spence built his store on the southeast corner in 1876, his store became the stagecoach stop. In 1878, he took over as the postmaster. The desk continued to serve the people of the area as their post office until 1899 when rural home delivery of mail came to Anoka County. Since many of the families in the Cooper's Corner area were related by either blood or marriage, the desk stayed in the family until 1983, when it and its story were brought to ACHS.

Geographic Names

Bethel, Anoka, Minnesota, United States, NA [45.40385,-93.26773] [id:5018085]