150 year old Podanur Post Office,Coimbatore

Podanur Potal office.sapost.blogspot.in

Podanur Jn . thehindu.com

Nearly 150 years ago, the Podanur is part of the Coimbatore Urban area and, surprisingly, it has a post office on the Railway Junction premises. You will be surprised to know that this post office is more than 150 years old. Podanur is an important railway junction and it was considered a gateway for the British who wanted to go to places beyond Coimbatore. During the British rule Podanur was an important British settlement. According to Postmaster General for Western Region Manju P. Pillai, Podanur has the distinction being the oldest post office in Coimbatore and has been functioning since 1886.

Podanur junction. weatherforecast

Though details are vague and sketchy, soon after the railway junction was established, a building had come up near the junction. The building was used for various purposes. It served as a guest house for the railway officials. Sometimes, this building was used by the soldiers as well during their transit journey. There was also a stable for the horses widely used by the soldiers and others. Soon a mail office was opened to serve the British community and later it became a post office. The Post office seemed to be very active as it had to handle huge volume of mails between the British settlements in the country and also foreign mail. Even now, the post office handles a large volume of letters, etc. Presently, this post office has the largest jurisdiction covering roughly a vast area of seven km radius.

This post office once had old documents, vintage stamping devices and a telegraph device with a golden handle, etc that were sent to the Postal Museum. This old structure is renovated a few times in the past. Only the interior part is renovated and not the entire structure - 4000 sq. feet. The postal office is on a plot of roughly half acre. The postal department had a proposal to bring out a postal cover on this vintage post office, a legacy of the colonial British era.

The unique aspect of this post office is it is an exchange point (serving parts of Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and areas now in Erode and Tirupur districts, besides Coimbatore). Further, it had mail runners too, who used to carry mails to other post offices.

Ref:

http://sapost.blogspot.in/2016/01/history-of-podanur-post-office-
in.html