Adkins, Mattas, Mize Family History

Postage Stamps, Post Marks and Post Offices

Part 2: West River and Then Some

Post cards and postage stamps tell stories in a compact form. From the 1880s and many years after that, you could buy a penny postcard, a one or two-cent stamp and send an entire message to your relatives and friends. Post offices were scattered all over South Dakota to help deliver these messages. They are an integral part of the state’s history.

My relatives settled in Dakota in the 1880s. They prospered there, and encouraged family and friends to come join them where good land could be had by “proofing” up a Homestead, even as late as 1920.


My Aunt Martha Manchester Adkins encouraged her Williams relatives in Wisconsin to come. Your gender was not an issue. Martha’s niece, Ada Williams, laid a claim near Westover along the White River in Jones County.

She sends a postcard to Martha dated May 15, 1906. “Miss Treet is with me, we have our shacks close together and we will stay right here until we proof up.” She stayed on the land, proofed up by building a shack and planting gardens. 

Ada Williams. Circa, 1900s

Ada Williams had gone with her parents, Henry and Olive Williams, who also laid a claim.


The Williams' claims were close to another family member, John “Jack" Williams, Ada’s brother.


In 1906, Ada’s uncle, Roy Upham joined them. He writes to Martha from the “Williams Ranch – Valley of the White River."

The Williams family sold their land to Frank Gilmore and moved into Murdo. The Westover post office closed in 1957. 

Photo courtesy of the South Dakota Historical Archives.

The Williams were not the only members of my relatives to go to “west river.” In 1926, my great aunt Cornelius Bertha Rider Lingschiet, her husband William, with their family, my great grandmother Emily Rider, and my great uncle Arthur Rider, loaded up their belongings and moved from Hutchinson County to a farm in Richland, Jones County. 

They ended up settling in Draper. My great grandmother passed away there in 1934. Bertha Lingschiet’s son-in-law Albert H. Miller, Jr. worked for the Draper Post Office for 38 years and was its postmaster. 

L-r: Arthur Rider, Emily Rider, Helen (Leach-Rider) Adkins and Bertha (Rider) Lingshiet. Circa, 1900s

New Paragraph

In 1901, Chris and Elizabeth Hansen homesteaded near Carter, South Dakota. In 1920, their son Chancey married my aunt Alice Adkins and they settled on the Hansen land. 

Alice (Adkins) and Chancey Hansen. Circa, 1940s

Carter promised to be a booming town, but the railroad missed it and it did not become the “gateway’ to the west.

Photo Courtesy Of the South Dakota Historical Society.

But Alice and Chancey raised their ten children there anyway and stayed for nearly 50 years. Alice wrote many letters to her sister, Grace Adkins Mattas during those years.

Getting mail to and out of Carter was a challenge! Their daughter, Adeline Hansen Vavra, born in 1928, tells this story:

“In the 1930s the road to our place sometimes just became a muddy rut. But we had a great mail carrier. He was an African American, I think his name was Bruce Gary, don’t know how he came to Carter. My mom, Alice, always had bread and rolls for him when he came!”

The Carter post office is gone now, as well as the town.

The Mina post office had a rocky beginning. The early settlers in this part of Edmunds County settled in the township of Cortlandt. Like so many other early post offices, an entrepreneur had built a store in the township and established a post office to draw in customers. When Mina was platted, the authorities wouldn’t change the location of the post office.

Article from the Edmonds County Democrat, 1909.

After 1909, the mail finally went to the Mina post office. Friends of my family sent a post card from there in 1920.

It too has now closed.

Post card from Mina. Unidentified friends. Circa, 1920

Some post offices on the South Dakota prairie became icons. The Gann Valley post office is one of those!


The town of Gann Valley has a population of about 20. An effort was made to close the office awhile ago, but because Gann Valley is the county seat for Buffalo County, it was deemed necessary to keep it open. The town is one of the smallest county seats in the United States. 

Ellen designed a special cancel for September 19, 2004, on the 200th anniversary of the Lewis and Clark expedition. She tells this story:


“It takes months to get these special cancellation ink stamps made. They have to be approved by the Postal Service. This day is when the Lewis and Clark reenactors visited Gann Valley. People from all over the world came into the post office to buy stamps. A descendant of Clark signed this one.”

Ellen (Cain) Speck worked for the post office there for 48 years, serving as its postmaster before she retired in 2015. She along with Jerri Lutter created this special cancellation in 2000 when Gann Valley was named the statistical population center of South Dakota!

My aunt Grace (Mattas) Adkins had friends in the 1900s that lived in Gann Valley. She kept the stamp!


The post office is on the National Historical Register. 

Gann Valley Picture and Post Cards courtesy of Ellen Speck.

People sent post cards to my relatives with pictures of

their farms ...

themselves...

My aunts, Lil and Mayme Mattas (in rear) with friends. Circa, 1900s

and even a president!

They are truly stories in compact form.

their towns...

Special thanks to Ellen Speck who keeps post office history alive in Buffalo County. Pictured here in front of the Duncan post office, now of course closed! Her grand parents and father, Charley Cain received mail there more than a century ago.

This post card was sent to my Aunt Grace Adkins Mattas.

Happy Leap Year, Everyone!

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