A Time-Honored Tradition

WAITSBURG – The Waitsburg Post Office will be open from 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday, May 16 to cancel stamped envelopes with a commemorative Waitsburg Celebration Days stamp.

Stamped envelopes containing a double-sided document with the city ordinance approving the seal on one side and the Walla Walla County Commissioners' proclamation on the other will be sold in the post office lobby for $1. Those envelopes may then be addressed and taken into the post office where they will be stamped with the commemorative stamp, which includes the May 16, 2015 date.

Past cancellations have been created in recognition of Cycle Oregon, The Walla Walla Stage Line and Waitsburg's Centennial celebration.

Waitsburg's centennial was celebrated in October of 1965, but a Centennial Committee began planning months prior to the celebration. Over those months, Larry Broom shared his thoughts on the committee's progress in The Times. Below is an excerpt from Broom's column in the May 13, 1965 issue of The Times, commenting on the centennial commemorative stamp.

We convinced the Post Office Department in Washington D. C. that we were not two headed monsters through the diligence of our very cooperative local Postmaster, Ivan Keve, and we have placed an order for a cachet to be inserted in the stamp canceling machine at the local post Office which will advertise our 100th anniversary.

We have decided upon the pattern of the official seal, used all these years in the business of the City of Waitsburg, as being our official Centennial insignia. We have enlarged this, and have ordered decorative trays with this insignia as the design. These will go on sale, we hope in a very few weeks.