Death halts Knights Ferry mail service

One hundred and sixty-three years of mail service to the historic town of Knights Ferry abruptly stopped this week when the contractor in charge passed away.

About 60 people in and around Knights Ferry rent post office boxes at the tiny office inside Miller’s Hall on Main Street, which shares the space with the museum, a book exchange, a gift shop and Knights Ferry Creamery.

“It is the hub of the community,” said Carol Davis, treasurer of Knights Ferry History and Museum Associates, which owns the building.

She said the U.S. Postal Service pays the nonprofit group $486 a month to operate the post office. The group subsidizes the rest – an extra $66 a month for the bonded contractor’s salary – as well as utilities and the cost of the building.

U.S. Postal Service spokeswoman Meiko Patton could not verify the figures.

“We do not discuss the specifics of our contracts due to proprietary reasons,” she said.

She said the Knights Ferry office was “emergency suspended” because of the contractor’s death.

The contractor, Sherron McCarthy, died Saturday at the age of 69; she had become ill two weeks prior. She worked at the post office for 27 years.

Denise Cassinetto had been filling in while McCarthy was ill. On Tuesday she arrived at the office to find Postal Service officials removing all the mail from the post office boxes and collecting government property such as the Knights Ferry postmark stamp.

They left a note on the outgoing mail slot and on the door informing customers their mail is available for pickup for 15 days at the post office in Oakdale, 12 miles away.

“We are currently in the process of looking for an alternate site for the Knights Ferry Community Post Office,” Patton said in an email. She did not indicate when that might be or if its days in the 1860 Miller’s Hall are over.

Davis fears that it will not return and that the Postal Service will instead put in unsightly group mailboxes for the residents. She said the Postal Service tried to shut down the office in 2013 for budgetary reasons.

Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Turlock, sent a letter to the USPS at the time requesting that it keep the office open. “(It) is neither a financial burden nor an insignificant part of the local community,” it read.

Davis went to Denham’s office on Thursday and spoke to an intern who told her they were aware the office has been emergency-closed and that other constituents have expressed concern.

Heather Boortman, owner of Knights Ferry Creamery, talked about the loss of the post office with customers on Thursday.

“I think it is just a sad thing to see it go because it is the liveliest spot in town,” she said. “It is part of the history of the town.”

This story was originally published March 31, 2016 at 6:10 PM with the headline "Death halts Knights Ferry mail service."