When the Stanford Post Office closed its doors for good on October 31, it was a minor shift in modern campus life. The university had already set up mail and package centers for students receiving deliveries, and anyone wanting to buy a stamp, send a letter, or even rent a mailbox could do so at the newly opened and privately run PostalAnnex on the second floor of Tresidder. When the university began notifying students of the pending closure last summer, only about 480 of the post office’s 10,000 P.O. boxes were rented.
But the closure ended an era stretching back to the fall of 1893, when the first Stanford Post Office opened. The small cottage on the Quad offered money orders, a long-distance telephone, telegraph service, and the prestige of a Stanford postmark. “Our post office address to the world at large is no longer Palo Alto, Cal., but Stanford University, Cal.,” the Stanford Daily crowed.
A century later, its White Plaza successor—the third and final building to serve as the campus post office—remained at the heart of student life. “The absolute center of campus activity, and the main link with the outside world, was the Stanford Post Office,” university president Jonathan Levin, ’94, told the Class of 2026 at Commencement in June. “Everyone had to stop in White Plaza to pick up their mail, so there was always a gathering of students around the post office boxes. It was delightful.”
WISH YOU WERE HERE: The university's first post office also offered a long-distance phone and telegraph service. (Photo: Courtesy Stanford Special Collections & University Archives/Stanford University)
Claire Diaz-Ortiz, ’04, MA ’04, remembers opening P.O. Box 14204 for everything from paychecks to chain letters—and coming back with stories about who she’d met. “The post office was such an institutional part of our experience that it’s crazy to imagine it not existing,” she says.
Her friend Adriana Sanchez Ochoa, ’04, recalls crying over encouraging mail from her parents and brothers when, as a lonely first-generation college student, she considered dropping out. Later, her LSAT scores and law school admissions arrived in the same P.O. box. “The post office was very special to me,” she says.
Digital communication dimmed the post office’s importance, as did changes in how the university handles mail and package distribution. The building will be transformed into a café, boutique bookstore, and space for lectures and cultural events as part of a broader effort to bring social vitality back to the area, while the current bookstore will become a “Commons Great Room” with a variety of gathering spaces.
The memories, though, endure. “14204 for eva eva,” Diaz-Ortiz says—by email.
Sam Scott is a senior writer at Stanford. Email him at sscott3@stanford.edu.
