Boomi Post Office

HISTORICAL INFORMATION

Present Post Office and Store
Present Post Office and Store

The first Post Office was established in Bishop Street on 17 August, 1900, in a room beside the Pioneer Hotel, and conducted by William Jakins in conjunction with the hotel. As Postmaster, he received a salary of 52 pounds per annum and Mary Jakins was employed as an assistant. The The telephone was connected from the beginning and Mary Jakins was the telephone operator. The office was not an official Post Office as the volume of business transacted through the office did not warrant this.

Phillip Smith came into Boomi from Kunopia and built a home at the western end of Duff Street. He added a room to the house and became the Postmaster in 1907 and the Post Office as such was moved from Bishop Street.

After repeated representation by local residents, the Post Office was made semi-official in October, 1907, and the telephone exchange was installed in the office on 27 June, 1911. Ethel Smith conducted the exchange at Kunopia in 1912, the year it closed, and came on into the Boomi exchange. Phillip Smith was the Postmaster at Boomi for twenty- two years.

In 1929 the office was reduced in status to an Allowance Office, for which the Postmaster received a salary calculated on a scale rate for the business transacted, but as from 1 July, 1942 approval was given to restore the office to a full-time service, providing full postal and saving bank facilities

By 1942 the old premises were inadequate and tenders were called to provide an office at the Postmaster General's specification. Jack Adams, Guildford, had the present office and residence built on his land in Bishop Street. The Department rented the office and the Postmaster rented the residence. The old office closed and transferred the services to the new premises, which offered full office and banking facilities as well as the telephone exchange.

Historic Post Office
Harry Craig purchased the Post Office building in the mid-sixties and since then the premises have been sold and bought by each new Postmaster.

There are now one hundred subscribers and seven trunk lines operated by a manual exchange and works are under way to have the exchange fully automatic by 1988.

BOOMI POSTMASTERS and POSTMISTRESSES:

William Jakins    17. 8. 1900       Kenneth Coe          1. 1. 1948
Phillip Smith     1. 3.1907         Harold Craig         6. 2. 1963
Gerald Brindley   8. 3. 1929        James Armitage       1. 7. 1979
Lillian Brindley  14. 8. 1933       Peter Blake          27. 2. 1981
John Collins      2. 6. 1939        Jan Alien            6. 1. 1983
Waiter Hilder     1. 9. 1939        Joy Hobbs            20. 8. 1986
Arthur Coe        11. 9. 1946
All historical information and B & W Pictures contained in this site are from the book UP ON THE BORDER BOOMI by Ellen Allen, published in 1988, and used with permission.

Kunopia - The Township Village of Boomi The Artesian Bore Boomi Post Office
Royal Hotel Pioneer Hotel Police Station Boomi Public School