{"id":976,"date":"2011-07-07T00:45:22","date_gmt":"2011-07-07T04:45:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.archives.nd.edu\/about\/news\/?p=976"},"modified":"2011-07-07T00:45:22","modified_gmt":"2011-07-07T04:45:22","slug":"notre-dame-post-offices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ndarchives\/notre-dame-post-offices\/","title":{"rendered":"Notre Dame Post Offices"},"content":{"rendered":" <\/a>
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The initial success of the University of Notre Dame as an internationally renowned institution is due to the passion and dedication of her founder, the Rev. Edward Sorin, CSC.\u00a0 Located in the rural wilderness of Indiana, Notre Dame had many obstacles to over come and Sorin had many ingenious ideas for strengthening the fledgling school.\u00a0 In 1850, only eight years after the founding, Fr. Sorin asked the federal government to establish a post office at Notre Dame.\u00a0 Sorin’s request was granted in January 1851.<\/p>\n

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Letter from Second Assistant Postmaster General Fitz Henry Warren to the Honorable Graham Newell Fitch, congressman from Indiana, regarding the establishment of a post office at Notre Dame and appointment of Rev. Edward Sorin, CSC, as its Postmaster, 1851\/0106<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Besides bringing communications directly to campus, a government post office on campus literally put Notre Dame on the map.\u00a0 Sorin noted,\u00a0 “The profit [of a post office established at Notre Dame] is merely a sparing of money and of inconvenience [as opposed to using the South Bend post office], but there is another very valuable circumstance connected herewith:\u00a0 the passing of the stage coach regularly under the windows of the college.\u00a0 The house is daily becoming better known and the roads leading to it will have to be better cared for” [Chronicles of Notre Dame du Lac<\/em>, page 100].\u00a0 While Fr. Sorin was the Postmaster, the Holy Cross Brothers were the ones in charge of the distribution of mail at Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s College.<\/p>\n

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Notre Dame’s first post office built in 1856, located just east of the present location of the Sorin Statue on the Main Quad, c1890s<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Entrance to Notre Dame with Main Building, Porter House (left), and Post Office (right), c1900s<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Campus Post Office exterior view, c1914
This building was completed in October 1914. In 1935, it was moved to the north side of Chemistry Hall (now Riley Hall of Art and Design) for use as a library. It was razed in the early 1950s with the construction of Nieuwland Science Hall.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Post Office on South Quad dedicated in 1934 (now the Knights of Columbus Building), c1950s<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The fourth post office was dedicated in 1967 and was located south of the Law School Building near Main Circle.\u00a0 It remained in use until the construction of Hammes Mowbray Hall in 2004.\u00a0 This post office was razed and the space is now occupied by the addition to the Law School.<\/p>\n

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Laying sod in front of the new post office at Main Circle, 1967\/0512<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hammes Mowbray Hall, which houses the current post office and security department, was built on the north side of campus near Stepan Center and the Power Plant in 2004.\u00a0 For the first time in nearly 150 years, a post office was not located near the main southern entrance of campus.<\/p>\n

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Hammes Mowbray Hall exterior, 2007\/0116<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Sources:
\nChronicles of Notre Dame du Lac<\/em> by Rev. Edward Sorin, CSC
\nUniversity of Notre Dame: Portrait of History and Campus<\/em> by Thomas J. Schlereth
\nCSOR 5\/10<\/a>
\nGTJS 3\/36
\nGFCL 48\/63<\/a>
\nGMIL 1\/01<\/a>
\nGPHR 45\/0050<\/a>
\nGPHR 45\/5658<\/a><\/p>\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" <\/a>

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The initial success of the University of Notre Dame as an internationally renowned institution is due to the passion and dedication of her founder, the Rev. Edward Sorin, CSC.\u00a0 Located in the rural wilderness of Indiana, Notre Dame had many obstacles to over come and Sorin had many ingenious ideas for strengthening the fledgling school.\u00a0 … Continue reading “Notre Dame Post Offices”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n ","protected":false},"author":4370,"featured_media":978,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[20],"class_list":["post-976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nd-history","tag-buildings-and-grounds"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-13 17:34:50","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ndarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ndarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ndarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ndarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4370"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ndarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ndarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ndarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ndarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ndarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/ndarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}