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Sixty-one years after it was orginally mailed from North Platte, this postcard picturing the Union Pacific Railroad depot was found in Arizona and returned to North Platte. Click image above to see larger picture or click here to see reverse side.
September 21, 2003
Mystery Depot postcard surfaces in Arizona
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Sixty-one years after it was orginally mailed from North Platte, this postcard picturing the Union Pacific Railroad depot was found in Arizona and returned to North Platte. Click image above to see larger picture or click here to see reverse side. |
When Dudley Oltmans opened the letter addressed to the president of the Adams Bank and Trust in North Platte, a mystery in the form of a penny postcard fell out onto his desk.
The card, postmarked Sept. 15, 1942, in North Platte, pictures the North Platte Union Pacific Railroad depot. It is addressed to Miss Esther Hill at 732 East E Street in Duluth, Minn. The message penciled on the card is brief: "8 minutes here." It is
signed Henry. Or perhaps Harvey.
A letter from Lowell Joerg of Tucson, Ariz., was enclosed with the postcard. Joerg explained he had found the postcard in an antique store in Bizbee, Ariz., an old copper mining town near the Mexican border.
"I thought to myself, by golly, I'll send it back home where it could be appreciated," wrote Joerg in his letter. He selected the Adams Bank address at random from Internet business listings.
Joerg calls returning some of the vintage postcards he finds in shops to their original locale a hobby that entails a "re-distribution of happiness."
"Our world sure needs it," he wrote, noting that he is "heading toward 80" as he goes about seeking to brighten up the days for others.
Joerg found the postcard a cause for speculation on how it might have gotten to Bizbee, Ariz. - "perhaps it arrived in some miner's truck," he wrote.
The hows and whys of it being written and mailed back in 1942 are cause for even greater speculation.
Could it have been written by a young serviceman aboard a troop train as it made a stop at North Platte's World War II Canteen? The message says "8 minutes here." Stops at the Canteen were often for only 5 or 10 minutes. Free postcards, stationery and
stamps were always available at the Canteen for those aboard the troop trains.
Who was Miss Esther Hill? Was she a sweetheart? Or maybe a sister?
And what of Henry - or perhaps his name was Harvey? To what far away place did World War II take him? Did he come home?
And what about that postcard? Someone saved it. It's neat and clean and unmarred as though it has been carefully tucked away for many years for safekeeping. A memento, perhaps, of "8 minutes here' and all that those 8 minutes at the North Platte Canteen
meant for a lifetime in the heart of one man.
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