CURRENT AND HISTORIC Post Offices

In the 1850's many areas in Southwestern Dane County and the Driftless Area of Wisconsin got a local post office. These post offices were another element in the rural communities. When horses were the mode of transportation, trips needed to accomplish more than one task. Often the post offices would be in a store, cheese factory, or private home. In several cases the newly appointed postmaster would give the name to these locations, many of which are still in use today.

The locations were easily and often changed since little equipment was needed. So when a new postmaster was appointed, the post office usually would move to their home or business. 

As the population grew and roads improved the Federal Post Office developed a Rural Free Delivery system. By around 1900 our area was served by the RFD system and many of these small post offices closed.

View our Archive's holdings Finding Guide.
At first, the advent of Rural Free Delivery or RFD, as it is better known, probably did not have a negative 
effect on the county's hamlets, but as roads improved, mail was increasingly delivered from post offices in
villages and cities rather than ones in hamlets with the result that post offices in the county's hamlets were 
gradually discontinued, giving farmers one less reason to go there. 
Unincorporated Hamlets of Dane County, Wisconsin
Blue Mounds Township/Village
Blue Mounds Post Office 
Blue Mound Post Office
East Blue Mounds Post Office 
Grit Post Office  
West Blue Mound Post Office
Cross Plains Township
Pine Bluff Post Office
Mount Horeb Village
Mount Horeb Post Office

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Blue Book Post Office report
Wisconsin "Blue Book" report on post offices from 1853 to 1935. CLICK FOR FULL IMAGE
Links and References:

Rural Free Delivery, Mary Clark
Unincorporated Hamlets of Dane County, Wisconsin

Blue Mounds Historical Society- articles and images
Dane County Historical Society- maps, articles
Mt. Horeb Area Historical Society- images, oral history, publications:
Mount Horeb - Presettlement to 1986. Mt. Horeb Area Historical Society, 1986
History of the Township of Primrose. Mary Hanna Zumbrunnen, 1990
The Historic Perry Norwegian Settlement. The Perry Historical Center, Daleyville. 1954
The History of the Town of Mount Vernon, 1846-1996. Walter Brink, Tim White, Karen White, Jennifer Goebler, Kathy Sies, Brian Bigler. 1996
The Town of Vermont – "The Early Years" 1846 – 1890. Marian Swoboda 
Town of Vermont History - Town of Vermont. August 1977
Town of Springdale, Dane County, Wisconsin: 1848-1998
University of Wisconsin Digital Collection - Madison Public Library - online resources: plat maps
University of Wisconsin Digital Collection - Wisconsin Legislative Manual  or "Blue Books"
Wisconsin State Historical Society- maps, articles
Wisconsin Post Office Handbook, revised edition No. 3, Frank Moertl. 1999
Legislative Manual Wisconsin 1868