Iconic Tiny Lansing, Michigan Post Office Featured in Postal Calendar
The Merrill Street Post Office in Lansing is a secret to many who live in Michigan's capital city. But's it's well known to postal aficionados. The Merril Street branch of the USPS was recently featured on a calendar for fans of our mail delivery.
Fandom for the post office may not be something you've known was a thing. But consider this: Every town in America, big and small has a post office. And no two post offices are alike. Some feature brilliant art inside and in other cases, the building is the art.
Postlandia is one such fansite for PO buffs. It's run by Evan Kalish, who not only documents visits to post offices far and wide, but is also a crossword puzzle constructor for the New York Times.
Postlandia creates an annual calendar and for November 2021, it was the Merrill Street location in Lansing has the featured image.
The calendar bears the caption:
The unique Merrill Street Station post office serves drive-up customers only. It offers all regular postal products and locals swear by the friendly service. First opened in 1987, the building was moved here in 1998 when its former site was redeveloped.
Merrill Street is a small connecting road between Saginaw Street and Oakland Avenue just east of US 127.
Indeed it is little known to even some who live in Lansing as evidenced by this comment on Instagram:
I grew up in lansing area. I was a carrier in lansing for about 5 years. I NEVER knew this place existed.... OMG mind blown! Next time I am home i will be sure to stop by this awesome little place!!!!
If you dig the post office calendar, the 2022 edition is available here.
The post office's reputation for great service is also not exaggerated. The drive-thru received almost universal 5-star reviews on Google and gets comments like this:
This is my first time visiting a drive thru post office. It was a really cool and unique experience. I was greeted by Janette at the window and she was very nice and told me this was the only free standing drive thru post office in the country. Definitely worth a visit if you are in the area even if you don’t have to mail anything. You could always grab a sheet of stamps as they had quite a few designs to select from. I wish they had more of these around! Thanks Janette for your help today!!
So should you find yourself in Lansing, seek out Merrill Street station. While it might not be the smallest in the state, that honor goes to a glorified shed in Elm Hall, it's worth a visit.
While this small Lansing post office may not be all that historic or culturally significant, at least some people make a point to search it out. These are some much more well known and visited sites across America.