Over the years, much in the city of Apopka has grown, from its population to the influx of businesses. And the local post office has been no different.
The 30th anniversary of the Apopka branch of the U.S. Post Office at 561 N. Park Ave., took place on December 7, as the post office relocated from Main Street, where the Denny’s restaurant now stands at Main and Edgewood Avenue, to its current site. The post office on Park Avenue opened for business on December 7, 1987.
Presently, the Apopka branch employs around 60 people and serves 42 routes, including rural and alternates.
Steve Hooks, the Apopka postmaster from 1985 to 1992, recalled that the post office was still on Main Street when he first started his postmaster position. Hooks began his career in the postal service in 1974 and retired in 2007.
“It was a challenging job but it was one of the most rewarding jobs I had in my career in the post office,” Hooks said about opening the current site in 1987.
About 30 employees worked at the Main Street location, with eight to nine clerks, six rural routes, and 20 city routes, according to Richard Francis, a maintenance worker at the branch. The former building was so small that a trailer was attached to it as an expansion.
On a quest for a new location because the Main Street building was “very crowded in there,” Hooks spoke with then-Mayor John H. Land and other people in the city. From his conversations, Hooks said he learned that the overall preference was for the post office to remain within the city limits.
A piece of property was found on Park Avenue, where the current post office would be built.
“Carriers were actually in our break room (of the post office’s former location) with carrying cases and things like that because we were so packed in there,” Hooks said. “We were able to get into our new building and spread out a bit.”
Hooks acknowledged the “tremendous growth in the city of Apopka” over the years. In 1990, the population was 15,242; in 2016, it was 49,458, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The full version of this story appears on page 1A of the Friday, December 27, issue of The Apopka Chief.
