CORBIN — By Carl Keith Greene / Staff Writer

 From Alpha to Knob Lick to Krypton to Yerkes, the U.S. Postal Service is considering closing about 130 of its offices across Kentucky.

The service began with Benjamin Franklin in 1775 when he was appointed Postmaster General by the Continental Congress.

Today there are about 37,000 offices bringing news, entertainment, payments, packages, gifts and even baby chickens and honey bees to the 311,967,029 citizens of this nation.

But, right now the USPS, over the next four to six months is to determine if about nine percent, some 3,200 offices, should be closed across the country.

In Kentucky that means that of the about 700 post offices, stations and branches in the state, about 18 percent could be gone.

For one of the offices on the local list, Dewitt in Knox County, a store next door has a petition for signing.

In the Tri-County area six offices are being considered for closing.

In Whitley County, the Siler office is the only office on the list.

Knox County holds the other five. They are Bryant's Store, Dewitt, Hinkle, Scalf and Trosper.

At Siler, Sherry L. Hill is the 15th post master since Owen Peace was named to the post on Oct. 5, 1904.

On May 1, 1988, the brick structure standing on a hill along KY 92 tucked into the corner of Whitley County where Bell and Knox counties meet opened and became the new post office.

It's 21 miles from there to Pineville or Williamsburg and about 19 miles to Barbourville.

The office with 1,460 square feet cost $159,577 when built. According to David L. Walton, the USPS Corporate Communicator based in Louisville, if the office was to be closed the postal service would sell the property.

Dean King, one of the Siler customers, said that people in the area don't get their mail carried to their homes because five of the roads in the area are not part of a delivery system.

If Siler should close and there are no postal boxes within about 20 miles of where the Siler post office once was, those people will have problems.

He also mentioned problems for people who do have roadside boxes. "You can put your mail in a box and people rob it and beat it flat."

Also, he added, "It's hard for some, especially older people, to get their mail anyway."

There are 150 boxes in the building and most of them are in use, Hill said.

Up the road at Clearence Peace's store, the one he's owned for the past 40 years, a potato chip delivery person was dropping off a supply.

Peace worried about the older people in the community and how they could send and pick up mail, and again was concerned that mail dropped in roadside mail boxes could be stolen, particularly on days when social security or other government checks are delivered.

If, not only Siler, but offices in other communities are closed, it "will be harder for people to go all the way to town. I'm afraid they'll close all the little ones (post offices) and you'll have to go to town," Peace added.

Before the community was named Siler it was named for the nearby stream Poplar Creek.

Its namesake was J.W. Siler, a local magistrate and preacher.

Just like Siler, Dewitt post office has customers who also aren't on roads where rural mail carriers don't deliver.

The postmaster there, Deborah Bingham, explained that customers who can't have mail delivered to their homes by the rural carriers have boxes in the Dewitt office free of charge.

To that problem Al Cross, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky, commented, "The biggest concern I have heard is security. Lots of rural people, especially the older ones, like the security of a post office box, as opposed to the rural mail box, which may be far from the door and more accessible by thieves than by their own household. This is a particular concern with the increasing use of mail order pharmacies."

On a hill along KY 1809 also near Poplar Creek stands Knox County's Bryants Store post office.

Minor Bryant became the first postmaster on Sept. 6, 1873. Since that day the post office has been on the same piece of land with the exception of five years when it moved across the highway, then moved back.

According to information from the postal service it was closed from Nov. 3, 1886 to Sept. 14, 1887 and again from Aug. 7 to Oct. 19, 1888.

For 33 years, 1970 to 2003, the office was operated by Estelene Adams.

She and her husband operated the store in which a corner was set aside for a post office until 1992, She died in 2003.

Current Postmaster Dennis Reed Gibson, who took charge in 2004. Gave a short tour inside the corner room in the store with its lattice walls. When Mrs. Adams moved the post office out of the store in 1992 she left the room as it was, with its cabinet of cubby holes in which mail was sorted for the people in the area, the desk at which she sat and the tiny window through which mail was passed in both directions.

"This is the way it used to be," said Gibson, who added, "A lot of memories in them boxes here."

He then moved next door into the current post office, where a photo of Minor Bryant is hanging high on the wall.

Gibson has been with the postal service for the past 38 years since 1973.

Before he had become the postmaster at Bryants Store he went to work at the Barbourville office.

There, he said, as the new employee he was "the bottom one on the totem pole."

He went to Corbin to get his license to drive a truck for the postal service. When he got there he found Harold Adkins, "the second guy in command down there" who gave him his license.

"He asked me if I wanted to work down there (Corbin) and if I was getting much hours at Barbourville. I said I wasn't and he said 'Want to work down here?'"

So he started working at nights in Corbin and when the opening at Bryants Store came along he got the job and has loved it ever since, he said.

Gibson said, as he finished his tour, that taking the post office away from the people who live in the area will put a hardship on them.

Just like the people at Siler, Dewitt and other offices that may be closed, buying stamps, mailing letters and picking up other mail will be another hardship.

And the elderly in the area may have to wait a while for the medicines they have ordered, or the checks they expect, he said.

The post office at Dewitt is on KY 223 off KY 25E south of the Turkey Creek Bridge.

It moved in 1987 from up the road to a building that houses Escoe's Store.

Escoe Smith opened the story after working for KCEOC and mining coal at strip mines in 1985.

In the window of his store is the sign stating, "KEEP DEWITT POST OFFICE OPEN SIGN PETITION HERE."

As of Friday about 500 signatures were on the document, said Smith.

The Dewitt office was opened by Postmaster Jesse Campbell on April 26, 1894.

Bingham was made postmaster on Nov. 11, 2008.

The post office at Hinkle is about three miles from U.S. 25E on KY 1304 across from Knox Central High School.

It was established on July 10, 1915 with Sarah Mills as postmaster and the current officer-in-charge is Odenia Hinkle appointed on April 29 this year.

 Above Dewitt is the Scalf post office operated by postmaster Delia Brown who has been there for the past 12 years from 1999.

It was established by James Scalf on Dec. 23, 1897.

It is about eight miles from U.S. 25E and to get there turn onto KY 223, then bear to the right on KY 223 at a fork. The road becomes a loop back to the fork.

 And Trosper post office is on the right about five miles beyond Artemus on KY 225.

The office was established on May 22, 1900, with John H. Trosper as the postmaster. The current postmaster is Nina Catherine Butler.

According to Walton, "We don't expect any offices to close before December." The Postal Service, he said, is still gathering data on each of the offices.

"Once we decide to move forward with a closing a public meeting will be scheduled."

Commenting on the money that will be saved in Kentucky when the shutdowns happen he said, "That depends on how many offices we close. After a public meeting is held, a docket with information about the office (mail volumes, revenue, expenses, etc.) will be posted at the office for public viewing."