Photo-of-the-Week #192 - Tiny Town - Tiny Post Office, Tinnie, New Mexico, December 2014

So, could this photo represent one of the reasons the U.S. Postal Service is losing money every year?

This is a tiny post office in the town of Tinnie, New Mexico, a tiny town in a group of tiny towns I passed through on my way to California. Personally, I don't see any problem a tiny post office like this one. I was once served by a tiny post office in Cross Junction, Virginia. However that tiny Virginia post office served a large part of the rural area of Frederick County, Virginia.

The thing that struck me is I would drive through tiny town after tiny town, all within only a few miles of one another - possibly two to five miles - and each tiny town had another tiny post office similar to this one. It seems to be that there are probably hundreds, if not thousands, of tiny post offices like these across the U.S. Each one has an overhead including to salary for one to two people plus one or more mail carriers, rent or construction cost, land cost, building and grounds maintenance, utilities, insurance, etc. It would be my guess that most of these post offices don't generate enough revenue to pay for their overhead.

So, why not consolidate three, four, five or even more of these tiny post offices into one central, slightly larger post office, eliminating a large amount of overhead and expense. Then, since most of these tiny towns typically has some kind of convenience or general store to support the local residents, let the stores set up a USPS kiosk to offer most basic services. The USPS would sell the postage to the stores at a discounted rate. The store then offers the postal services as an additional line as they do with gasoline and other products.

It's my thought that, while it might not completely eliminate the USPS annual deficit, it would certainly put a dent in it. As an aside, I dropped off some Christmas cards I needed to mail at the tiny Tinnie, New Mexico post office. But, I already had my stamps, so I just deposited the cards in the mail collection box. I could have just as easily dropped thin in a collection box at the local general store.