(GONE) Carmen, OK - 73726 - U.S. Post Offices on Waymarking.com

UPDATE: 2022: The Carmen Post Office is permanently closed.

The Carmen post office is located at 418 W. Main Street in this town of about 410 people, in the southwest corner of Alfalfa County on State Highway 45.

When the Kansas City, Mexico and Orient Railway (later the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway) planned a line through the county, the town of New Augusta (presently Carmen) sold lots in December 1900. It rapidly developed in anticipation of rail access. Many of the businesses in the town of Augusta nearby immediately moved there. The towns coexisted for several years. At its 1901 incorporation New Augusta was renamed Carmen (reportedly by an Orient railroad director to honor the wife of Mexico's president, Porfirio Díaz), receiving that postal designation on September 11, 1901, with William B. Parker as postmaster.

Carmen's progress stopped temporarily on the evening of May 23, 1903, when a tornado destroyed the fledgling town of wood-frame buildings, killed three people, and injured 150. However, the resilient residents soon built brick buildings and churches and three grain elevators. In early 1904 the Arkansas Valley and Western Railway (part of the St. Louis and San Francisco Railway system) completed a line from Enid through Carmen to Avard, helping resurrect the town. After incorporating in 1905, at 1907 statehood it vied for selection as county seat but lost to Cherokee. By that time Carmen was an important wheat-shipping and agribusiness center.

Carmen flourished. By 1909 a flour mill, a creamery, three elevators, a bottling works, and an ice plant operated. By the mid-1930s the community supported six churches, a fourth grain elevator, three hotels, six groceries, a movie theater, and three dozen other retail establishments. The Woods County News, the Alfalfa County News, the Carmen Sunlight, and the Carmen Headlight printed the news. Educational facilities included a public high school in a $100,000 building. In 1906-1907 the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) constructed an orphan's home one mile north of town. Citizens donated a quarter section of land for the $25,000 building that served more than a thousand youths before closing in 1944. It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places (NR 84002944), as is the IOOF Lodge Number 84 (NR 84002948).

The multiple railroads anchored Carmen's future as a shipping and marketing point for grain, livestock, dairy products, and poultry. During Carmen's first five decades its population hovered between seven hundred and nine hundred, peaking in 1930 at 904. The 1940 census recorded 818, and the 1960, 533, declining to 411 at present.
[Source of information: (visit link)

Type of structure:: Storefront re-enter Zip Code here:: 73726 Current Status:: Still in Use

Visit Instructions:
To post a log to an existing U.S. Post Office waymark, you will need to post a picture of the front of the building, with the name of the post office in the background if that is possible.

A description of your Post Office is required, such as when it was built, history, outstanding or unique features, population of the city or town, just do a quick internet search and find an interesting bit of information about the city or town and add it to the long description, to make it more interesting. Even just adding in the population of the area can give others an idea of how many people this post office serves. This description should be at least three sentences.

If your Post Office has any unusual or unique features that you feel others would enjoy viewing, additional pictures are always welcome.
Including your gps device in the picture is not necessary, but wouldn't be cause for disapproval, as long as all other details of your log are acceptable.

Recent Visits/Logs:

Date Logged Log User Rating   07/03/2024 The Snowdog visited it