MENDOCINO CO., 6/16/26 — For more than two years, getting the mail in this town at the northern tip of Mendocino County meant a half-hour drive up Highway 101 to Garberville. On Monday morning, that detour ended.
The Leggett Post Office reopened June 15 at its old address on Drive Thru Tree Road, more than two years after a fire destroyed the only post office in town. Customers who turned up on opening morning found full retail and P.O. box service running again — and a building that looked a lot better than many had braced for.
“It’s a beautiful new post office,” said Shannon Hurst, a postal worker on hand for the reopening. “We expected something like a modular trailer, but this is really nice.”
The old post office burned March 1, 2024. Neighbors said a lightning strike hit a nearby tree and the fire spread to the small building. No one was hurt — the office was closed when it caught — but the blaze wiped out the only place to buy a stamp or pick up mail from a P.O. box for miles around.
The P.O. box part is particularly important. Many rural areas have no mail delivery, so everyone gets their mail delivered to their numbered box in town. Residents of Leggett, the junction where Highway 101 meets Highway 1 on the road to the redwoods, depend on those boxes and that little counter where one can buy money orders or send off packages to friends.
After the fire, the U.S. Postal Service routed the town’s mail to Garberville, about 30 minutes north. For people used to a short drive to the window, the round trip turned a quick errand into a half-day chore. The last pickup in Garberville came at the close of business June 12.
The rebuild stretched well past two years. When the doors finally opened, the new space drew a steady stream of relieved customers, several of them grinning as they walked out with mail that no longer required a trip out of town.
“The postal service is thrilled to reopen the Leggett Post Office and resume regular operations in our community,” Postmaster Kristi Rico said in a statement. “We sincerely thank our customers for their patience and continued business.”
The reopened office keeps its old hours: Monday through Friday, 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and 1 to 4 p.m., with 24-hour access to the P.O. box lobby. Box holders need a photo ID to pick up a new key.
For Leggett, the two-year detour is over. The mail is home again — and the modular trailer people braced for turned out to be a real post office.