The U.S. Postal Service isn’t what it used to be.
Gone are the days when families eagerly awaited the mail carrier in hopes of receiving a long-awaited letter from family or a distant friend. Those days have been replaced by the instant gratification of email, text messages and video calling.
Even checking the mail has become a chore, possibly because the mail has more bills and solicitations than warm greetings.
As our interest in mail delivery has declined, so has the public’s attention to those little metal boxes stuck to a pole outside most homes.
But for a select few, the mailbox remains a place to express themselves or add a personal touch to the home.
Some are artistic, such as the one at 2909 West Third Ave. in Durango, where Nancy Kitson used glass shards to tile the outside of her box in a mosaic pattern.
“I like decorating the outside of the house, too, so it was fun,” she said.
Others make a political statement, such as the one at 3056 East Third Ave., which depicts a 6-foot-tall black assault rifle.
Lifelong Durango resident Cody Batchelor said he made the AR-15 out of wood this summer. It is intended to show his support for U.S. troops and gun rights, he said.
“I’ve had numerous people take photos of it,” Batchelor said. “I’ve had a couple of police officers stop and tell me how neat it is.”
The box has been vandalized once during the last eight months, he said. And Batchelor’s sister once heard a group of people talking about how “ridiculous” it was, he said. Other than that, he hasn’t received any negative feedback.
The city of Durango and La Plata County don’t have rules when it comes to mailbox decorations. The U.S. Postal Service also doesn’t have many rules, as long as the box is 42 to 48 inches off the ground, said Sean Schtakleff, postmaster with the Durango Post Office.
An employee with the Colorado Department of Transportation once took issue with an elaborate mailbox near the Archuleta-La Plata County line along U.S. Highway 160.
The mailbox owned by Lee Wood depicts a cowboy holding a revolver in one hand and a sign in the other that reads, “Cash & checks only, no bills.” The CDOT employee saw Wood erecting the sculpture in the late 1990s and warned him that it could be a distraction to drivers, Wood said.
“It’s still there now, and I think people would get on me if I took it down,” he said.
Wood, who used to own a metal fabrication shop in California, said he made the sculpture out of steel pipe.
“It’s just a novelty, a conversation piece,” he said.
Some residents have mailboxes with sentimental value.
Lawrence Nass, who teaches piano at the Smiley Building, said he received a mailbox from a former student who painted it to resemble piano keys.
“I thought it was just so special that she thought to do that,” said Nass, who lives in the 2900 block of East Fifth Street. “It didn’t have anything to do with a conversation we had. It was a project that she came up with. It was really clever.”
When Nass meets neighbors for the first time, and they find out he is a music teacher, they immediately make the connection.
“They say, ‘Oh, you must live there,’” he said.
Some mailboxes have unique functions.
On County Road 203 north of Durango, an old wheel – possibly from a tractor or irrigation system – has 11 mailboxes mounted on it. Residents spin the wheel until their mailbox faces the road.
Resident James Atteridg compared it to a roulette wheel.
“It does have that mystical gambling effect every time you spin it,” he said. “I’ll spin it and see how close I can get to having mine end up by my car.”
The only danger: If a mailbox lid is left open, it can scratch the side of a car.
Durango postal carrier John Dills said the wheel is a little off kilter and in disrepair, but it is still his favorite stop on County Road 203.
Change of pace
The unique mailboxes are a refreshing change of pace for mail carriers.
Jody Schultz, who delivers mail in the Rafter J subdivision, said one woman decorates her mailbox every holiday. Residents used to do more with their mailboxes, she said, but people aren’t as interested in the mail anymore.
“The older folks definitely do still enjoy getting those Christmas cards,” Schultz said.
Lori Stencel, who delivers mail north of Durango on East Animas Road (County Road 250), said the unique and decorated boxes make the day a little more fun.
It’s not just the outside of mailboxes that can break up the monotony of the day. What’s inside also has thrown postal workers for a loop.
Stencel said she has twice found a snake in a mailbox.
“I’m thinking it was a pet,” she said. “It dropped out the first day, and it was back the next day.”
Had it been a rubber snake, she would have suspected someone was playing a joke on her, she said.
Durango postal carrier Michael Schumann said he often finds empty beer cans in mailboxes on Durango’s South Side.
About nine years ago, he found a bag of dead puppies in a parcel locker in town.
“It was pretty horrible to come across,” Schumann said. “I still have nightmares about that.”
Mailbox baseball
Residents have come up with innovative ways to protect their mailboxes from vandals – people who throw firecrackers into mailboxes or drive past them with a baseball bat in hand, a game known as mailbox baseball.
One former resident installed a “retribution mailbox” that would swing around if hit by a bat. A 2-by-4 bolted to the back with a cinder block tied to it would spin around and hit the car, he said.
One man became so fed up with vandalism that he installed a metal cage around his mailbox and installed a lock on the door. He would lock it every night after picking up the mail, and unlock it before going to work, Stencel said.
“It’s amazing what people will do when they get them damaged all the time,” she said.
Durango carrier Sunday Campbell said one of her favorite houses to deliver to is on Jenkins Drive in the Hillcrest subdivision, where an older couple often wait outside in anticipation of the mail. They have a little dog that is given one letter each day to carry into the house, she said.
“It’s so cute; it makes me smile,” Campbell said.
Stencel, who delivers mail on East Animas Road, said she has a special appreciation for a steel mailbox that is an artistic rendering of an adobe house.
The box is owned by Sandy Bruce, who said she wanted her house to be different from the moment people turned into the driveway.
“I also thought it would be fun for the mail carrier to see something different than one of the old standard mailboxes,” Bruce said.
Some residents have made small modifications to their boxes, for example to the flag that is raised if mail needs to be picked up.
Marje Cristol, who lives on East Animas Road, installed a red metal lizard on the arm that raises and lowers.
Durango resident Jon Schuetz, who served in the U.S. Army and is an honorary Marine, has a steel mailbox with the cutout of a bear sniffing flowers on top. On the side is a depiction of the raising of the flag on Iwo Jima.
“It does tell a little story,” said Schuetz, who lives on East Animas Road. “I hate to use the word it’s a ‘statement,’ but it is an identification thing.”
shane@durangoherald.com
