STRATFORD, Conn. (AP) – A postcard from Maine has created a mystery at town hall, arriving 50 years after it was mailed.

The postcard, sealed in clear cellophane, was postmarked Aug. 14, 1957, and bears a 2-cent stamp.

It was mailed from the East Sumner, Maine, post office, which no longer exists, and was addressed to one-time Town Manager Harry Flood, who has been dead for nearly 40 years.

“It’s a history mystery and it’s fun to speculate,” Stratford Mayor James Miron said.

The postcard is signed by a woman named Alice who apparently was a friend of Flood’s, prompting her to use just her first name.

“Hi, enjoying this rather fallish weather. It was 44 degrees yesterday. See you next week,” she wrote.

A postal spokeswoman said it’s possible that a collector sent the antique post card to town hall.

“This is very, very rare and a true mystery,” said Maureen Marion, spokeswoman for the U.S. Postal Service region that serves Connecticut and upstate New York. “Between the stamp being old and the postmark being from 1957, it’s very difficult to determine who sent it and why.”

One clue is that it was wrapped in cellophane, so it’s possible the postcard was mailed a second time when it arrived at town hall, she said.

“The likelihood that this postcard has been sitting in a building for 50 years is very slim,” Marion said. “My guess is that some collector decided to send it to the town, or someone just found it in an old attic among a pile of letters or other documents and didn’t know what else to do with it.”

A Stratford postal worker who delivered the postcard to town hall didn’t know what to do with it and consulted with a supervisor before dropping it off at town hall, Marion said.

Library workers are combing through old records and trying to identify the postcard’s writer.

Jerry Gillespie, head of adult services and reference at the Stratford Library, said workers are trying to track down a first name without a last name by researching old census records “to determine who was living with Mr. Flood at the time, things like that.”

Library employees also are checking old directories and trying to find living relatives, he said.

Miron joked that the message on the postcard shows that times have changed in half a century.

“Being 44 degrees in August shows it was before global warming,” he said.