First Landers Post Office Proudly Remembered Almost 66 Years Later

The Post Office has been with us as a country from the very beginning of the Republic. It traces its beginnings back to 1775 during the Second Continental Congress, when Benjamin Franklin was appointed the first postmaster general. The Post Office Department was created in 1792 with the passage of the Postal Service Act and Congress was given the authority in Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution to establish post offices and postal roads.

In a 1954 National Geographic article, then-postmaster Arthur E. Summerfield put the importance of the Post Office this way: “It is ... the greatest as well as the most economical of all the social services in our modern society. No other agency of government is so close to the daily life of each community or so personal in its relations with our people.”

The Post Office is, according to most surveys, the most popular governmental agency with a favorability rating of 90 percent or better. The fact is most citizens have continuous daily contact in one way or another with their local post office. The story of the Landers Post Office illustrates how important it was to Landers and the other surrounding homestead communities.

In the 1950’s Landers grew mainly as an area of recreational homes for part-timers and weekenders encouraged by the government’s passage of the 1938 Five-Acre Homestead Act known as the “Jackrabbit or Baby Homestead Act.” Mail was delivered on a Star Route to about 42 mailboxes. However, permanent residents who had postal boxes had to drive into Yucca Valley to pick up their mail since Landers did not have its own Post Office.

It was Newlin Landers who first attempted, unsuccessfully, to persuade the government to establish a post office in Landers. In 1959, Vernette Landers took up the effort. She had the help of Congressman Harry R. Sheppard. “Congressman Shepherd said, well, he wanted to be sure that I was serious about this matter. So, he said, ‘If, you will find land with a building on it and agree not to put any other business on it, and you will take charge of that post office for 10 years at $1 a year, then I will try to help you get a post office.’”

“He did what he said he would do and Hilda Hardesty, who was the postmaster at Yucca Valley, helped me start the Landers Rural Station out here in Landers. First, I had to get the building, and across Reche Road from where we lived, the Kelley’s were living in an old desert cabin. It was built by a man named Klingbeil in 1958 as a recreational cabin. It had no plumbing or anything like that. There was a privy outside. I was able to purchase it from the Kelleys because they wanted to leave the area and it made a perfect spot for the Landers Post Office,” said Vernette in an interview.

Vernette Landers was awarded the contract to operate the station (post office) for $1 a year. Dedication Day was February 2, 1962 and it officially opened with 170 mailboxes of which 160 were rented by permanent residents. By 1984, more than 500 boxes were rented.

Mary Chessey was Vernette’s first assistant and she worked there for ten years, retiring in 1972. Virginia Deshon, who put in 20 years at the post office, became the Assistant Postmistress. Judith Deshon, her daughter-in-law, also worked there until 1985. Vernette paid for all of the operating expenses including the salaries. When she wasn’t working her full-time job with the school district, she clerked in the post office. She kept up a continuous correspondence with the postal service and other governmental agencies and officials on a range of issues. Finally, she retired from the post office in 1985 and donated the land and the building to the United States Postal Service.

Landers was the first post office to be granted in an area of government recreational tracts. The approximate 400 sq. ft. wood cabin was divided into two tiny interior parts with slightly over half allotted for postal work and the balance dedicated for public access to mailboxes and other services. It soon became a center of community life. Many locals can remember waiting outside the little Post Office visiting under the trees there. Others gathered under the cottonwoods across the road where they would socialize and fill their jugs from the faucets there. Often this is where plans were made to meet again for Friday Night “Cook Your Own Steak” and dancing at the Longhorn or Belfield. Hall.

Don and Judith Deshon remember the post office very well. Don’s parents, Otis and Virginia Deshon first came out weekends with their children beginning in 1948. Don was 12 years old at the time and helped his dad build their first homestead cabin. His 5th grade teacher in Bell Gardens was Vernette Landers. Later on, after he grew up, he put in a lot of work with Newlin Landers, helping him with his water service and other businesses. He remembers grading Reche Road with a grader attached to Newlin’s World War II surplus weapons carrier. (Both the grader and carrier are on display at the Morongo Basin Historical Society’s museum grounds in Landers.)

Judith Deshon has many memories from working at the Landers Post Office. All the postal records were carefully kept in spiral notebooks. It was the friendliest place. Folks exchanged cookies, candy, food. One person went to Hawaii every year and sent them macadamia nuts.

One time they received a letter, postmarked from a town in Pennsylvania, addressed in childish writing “To Grandma and Grandpa, Landers.” The postal staff asked everyone who came in if they had grandkids living in Pennsylvania. It took a while but they finally figured it out and the letter was delivered to the grandparents in Landers in time for Christmas.

If old people came in and they couldn’t bend down to get mail from their boxes, the staff helped them out. They often received mail with no box numbers in the address lines and they made every effort to figure out who it was intended for without returning it.

Don said the post office was a “godsend” for the homestead communities since the residents could pick up the mail in Landers instead of driving 16 miles to Hardesty’s store in Yucca Valley where Hilda Hardesty the Post Mistress ran the post office. Don remembers whenever Newlin drove to Yucca Valley, “Talkie” the Landers’ pet raven rode on the hood ornament of the car partway before flying back home to 632 Landers Lane.

Don always wanted to turn the homestead cabin across from the Post Office into a donut and coffee shop. He supposed he’d be a rich man because the patrons hung around the post office gossiping all day.

Judith remembers how Vernette’s tenure at the Post Office was ended abruptly. On December 8, 1985, Vernette asked for raises for the employees. A post office official came out and said “as today, you are no longer needed.” So, they kicked Vernette out.

In 1997 ground was broken for a new post office. The opening ceremony was May 4,1998. Shortly thereafter, the postal service deeded the original cabin back to Vernette and she was then faced with moving it to her property at 632 Landers Lane, about a half-mile south of its location. During 1998 and 1999 the original post office building was dismantled and moved to her home on Landers Lane where it was reassembled. Today this building still stands on the grounds of the Morongo Basin Historical Society’s Museum and Research Center. It contains many original items from the old post office such as the safe, cancelled stamps, photographs, letters and old business records.

In August, 1999, the California Office of Historical Preservation, through the efforts of the Morongo Basin Historical Society, designated the original post office as a California Historical Resource and in 2000 a commemorative plaque was installed.