The new facility should be completed by February.
By Eileen M. Adams
Staff Writer

HANOVER – The Hanover Board of Selectmen recently got word from the U.S. Postal Service that the town will definitely get a new post office.

The concrete pad is there. A silver flag pole stands to the left of it. Two lighting poles are installed on each side. Small trees and shrubs have been planted. Water and sewer lines are installed. There’s even a loading dock, eight lined parking spaces and a handicapped sign. The only thing that’s missing is the building.

“It’s pretty exciting,” said USPS spokeswoman Christine Dugas. “It should be up by February.”

All the infrastructure has been there for about three years. Then, a freeze on all new post office projects went into effect.

The new 14-by-65-foot post office, sitting on a 200-by-200-foot lot, will be located a few hundred feet east of the post office that now shares a part of Gordie Howe’s store. Land was purchased by the post office from Elmer Lyons, owner of The Lyons Den antique business just east of the new post office site.

“I think it’s overdue,” said Town Clerk Clem Worcester. “With a new post office, business may increase.”

With the site prepared for so long, and with nothing happening on it, Worcester said he once thought, “We ought to put up tents and put a post office in it.”

That won’t have to happen now.

Selectmen have periodically contacted the postal service during the past three years. The answer had always been that there was no change in status.

Hanover residents have been getting their mail most of the time since the 1950s, from a tiny space located at the rear of Gordie Howe’s store, even when the convenience store/lunch business closed in the late 1990s.

Christopher Howe bought the business in 1999 and re-opened it.

eadams@sunjournal.com

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