Connecting the Greater Vail Community Since 1908
My dearest Friend,
…Oh, Dear, I have been sorely tried. How little I knew about sorrow when we first met. How gloriously happy I was then! ‒and how sad and lonely I feel now! This monotonous life is hard to endure. I have not been off the Ranch, not to the town for more than a year, only work, work, day in and day out…
…Yours as ever, Alma M. Tattersfield
Written in Vail, mailed from the 1908 Old Vail Post Office July 22, 1910
Alma’s words reach across the years to reveal the isolation and grinding labor it took to build a life in Vail, Arizona Territory. A letter, carefully crafted, stamped, and carried to the adobe 1908 Vail Store & Post Office was more than ink on a page; it was a physical link connecting those who had come west to find a new life with the communities and families they had left behind. It took a lot of faith to entrust these lifelines to the local postmaster… It might be weeks or even months before an answer was received. How dear each treasured word of the reply would be when it finally arrived! Letters were read and re-read, held to the heart, tied with a ribbon or string and kept in special place waiting for a new generation to discover. They provide a glimpse of life when Vail was a young community in the Arizona Territory.
The adobe 1908 Vail Store & Post Office was the hub of communication and commerce for an area stretching from the Rincon Valley in the north to the Empire and Santa Rita Mountains to the south. Correspondence was welcomed equally by well-to do ranch owners and railroad section hands. Homesteaders, miners, wranglers and teamsters, they all crossed paths at the 1908 Vail Store & Post Office.
Its adobe walls have echoed with shared gossip, joy, sorrow and laughter. And raucous jokes and bragging comments when a beer or a stiff shot of whisky hit the long wooden bar; its builder, Otto Schley had the only liquor license between Benson and Tucson. The smell of fresh hay, lathered horses, and oiled leather was taken for granted when the Tucson to Helvetia and Tucson to Tombstone Stages made regular stops at the west end of the building to water and change horses. Mexican and Yaqui families escaping unrest in Mexico stopped by in hopes of hearing where work could be found, to purchase some canned goods, or if they were very fortunate, pick up a letter from loved ones.
By the late 1910s travelers could fill up the gasoline tanks on their new-fangled motor cars that were traveling over the Tucson to Vail Road that passed by the north side of the building. During the 1930s the boys from the Civilian Conservation Corp camp at Colossal Cave stopped in to pick up their mail, exchange gossip, and purchase an ice cold Delaware Punch or Orange Soda Pop.
The post office often passed on good news, but it also transmitted news that changed families forever. Many tears were shed when a telegraph arrived in December 1942 saying that Private Bernardino Estrada, son of Mt. Fagan homesteaders Francisco and Lupe Estrada, wouldn’t be coming home. The call announcing the elopement of Jack Herman and Jane Dillon came first to the Vail Store and Post Office. Whatever happened anywhere in the area it was probably discussed over the counter at the Old Vail Post Office. According to Frances Schmidt Sundt, “The Post Office was the hub of the community. We went to the post office just to find out what was going on. After all, you had to know what your neighbors were doing!” Frances grew up at Colossal Cave and picked up her mail in Vail.
Part of Our National Story
Vail and other railroad stops, like Esmond and Rita to the west and Irene, Pantano, and Benson to the east, were a local response to the expansion of the United States population westward. This 1908 Adobe was a center of commerce and communication and part of the everyday life of ordinary people who passed through its doors, every day, for over 100 years. Some of the people associated with the building were flamboyant, energetic and left a lasting mark while others led quiet lives that are hard to trace. There were even a few memorable pets.
Early homesteading families like the Leons, Bravos, Estradas, Johnsons, Cranes and Millers collected their mail in the adobe 1908 Vail Store & Post Office. They were also working as wranglers, miners, railroad workers, and ranchers, whatever it took to make a living. Others who picked up their mail at the adobe post office included an Apache named Naicho, who claimed to have ridden with Geronimo, and his son Gabrielle, who ran goats along Cienega Creek up into the Rincon Valley, and WWII Medal of Honor awardee Audie Murphy who drove into Vail from his TM Ranch. They were all connected with the outside world and far away loved ones through the humble adobe 1908 Vail Store & Post Office.
The Old Vail Post Office is a physical reminder of the national economic and cultural forces that converged at Vail in the late 19th and early 20th century. All other traces of Vail’s railroad, mining and ranching roots at the original town site are gone; erased by time, population growth, and development. Located Between the Tracks at Vail’s original town site along Colossal Cave Road this humble adobe is a reminder of Territorial Arizona and the daily struggles of those that made a life there. It is a sharp visual contrast to the perfectly manicured image promoted by a modern, developing Vail.
Vail Preservation Society©
