Talk:List of United States post offices: Difference between revisions

• For each post office, year opened.

• For former post offices, location, year opened, year closed.

• Post offices that are historically important, such as that of Charleston, South Carolina, where, with approval from the Postmaster General and the President, I think Jackson, for publicly burning abolitionist mail instead of delivering it.

deisenbe (talk) 09:54, 28 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Other info to consider:

• Date of construction (different from year opened)
• Address

Rublamb (talk) 21:12, 17 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This article’s title was just changed to List of United States post office buildings, with the edit summary “this is a list of historic buildings, not a list of current post offices”. I’ve reverted the title back to List of United States post offices for three reasons: First, WP:CONCISE – the shorter title was not being used for a list of all current post offices, it just redirected right back to the longer title. Second, while it’s true it will never be a list of all post offices, it’s equally true that it will never be a list of all post office buildings. Third, not all the buildings are dedicated post offices; some are also stores, court houses or custom houses. Station1 (talk) 03:06, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This move was in relationship to a current AfD discussion regarding a list of post offices for a country. Since there is a Wikipedia guideline that prohibits lists of business locations, this article has already been identified for an future AfD. There would be no problem with an article about historic post offices or post office buildings because that is a selected data set that is not about locations. However, a “list of United States post offices” is going to be hard to defend against such a specific guideline. Furthermore, the existing title does not reflect the content of the article, which has been limited to current and former post offices buildings that are historically significant. (It doesn’t matter if the building had other uses, it is still a “post office building” if it housed a post office.) Being concise is not a reason to misname an article. A title change will avoid future problems such as the addition of random and non-historic post offices, like some that I removed today. Rublamb (talk) 03:44, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is a list of “notable” post offices, a selected data set. Many but not all are historic, and many but not all are buildings. The only thing they all have in common is that they are or were U.S. Post Offices, so the current title is more correct. I’m not opposed to deletion – this really might be better as a category – but I doubt this will be deleted, no matter the title. If a post office has it’s own WP article, or good inline sourcing, it’s notable and belongs on the list; others don’t. I would be interested in links to the AfD discussion and guideline you mentioned though. Station1 (talk) 06:24, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The AfD is about List of Hong Kong post offices. I have added some of the needed sources but have yet to find a way around the stated reason for AfD, although it has met notability for a stand-alone list. I may yet figure out a rationale to save it, as its content goes beyond directory info.

This article is different because of the selection criteria, but that selection is not reflected in the article’s name. The big issue is that it does not have any secondary sources that discuss the data set (list of U.S. post offices) as a group, which is needed for a stand-alone list article to prove notability. However, I found and added several secondary sources that discuss historic and unique post office buildings. Meaning, an article on post office buildings is notable and can easily survive an AfD. This type of article (list of notable buildings) is very consistent with other architectural lists in Wikipedia, including many that I have worked on. However, there is still a ton of work needed on this article to find sources for all of the redlinked locations. I will take this on when I finish my current project.

I am not sure what you mean by “not all are buildings”. Can you provide an example of a post office on this list that is not in a building? It might be helpful to consider the post office as the “business” and the post office building is the structure where the business takes place. Rublamb (talk) 16:19, 18 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This started out as a dab page for articles titled “U.S. Post Office (City, State)”, but there was a lot of controversy about that, so it was “saved” by making it a list. I’m not sure what purpose it serves. It’s basically a directory of articles on WP about U.S. Post Offices, with some others that maybe should have articles. As to “not all are buildings”, an example is J. W. Westcott II, a boat. Station1 (talk) 07:08, 19 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, directories are considered worthwhile in Wikipedia. Not my area of expertise, but I am pretty sure this would not be considered a directory because it includes items not in Wikipedia and more info than just the article names. Its value is as a list of notable buildings; it could be expanded to include date of construction, architectural style, architects, photographs, etc. List of buildings, especially NRHP structures, are common in Wikipedia even though there is overlap with categories. The boat is a good example–thanks for finding it. It doesn’t really fit the state organizational structure either. If we go with List of U.S. Post Office buildings, I would solve this issue moving the boat to See Also. After I finish working on sources, I will have a better idea of what percentage of NRHP/architecture vs. historic events vs something else. We can revisit then. Rublamb (talk) 09:13, 19 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Support split – This page is over 200 kB, so I recommend splitting this page into one article per U.S. State (i.e. “List of post offices in Alabama”. Thoughts? —Jax 0677 (talk) 15:42, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]