Carlson's famous General Store and TurtlePoint, PA Post Office

Carlson's General Store
Turtlepoint, PA

photo credit: Olean Times Hearld, May17, 1988

He's put his 'stamp' on Turtlepoint
by Cora Niver
Times Hearld staff writer

TURTLEPOINT, Pa.- More than 100 years have passed since the post office at the G. L. Carlson & Sons country store at Turtlepoint, Pa., was established.

Time hasn't changed it much - the post office appears much the same as it always has. Only the way the mail is delivered and sent out has changed.

Turtlepoint is midway between Eldred and Port Allegany, just off Route 155. The post office serves fewer than 200 residents, 45 of whom pick up their mail and an estimated 140 who receive theirs through rural delivery.

The country store's present owner and operator, George L. Carlson, 94, recalls his boyhood years growing up in the McKean County community and fetching the mailbags.

"I was a substitute rural carrier for my father, S. John Carlson," Mr. Carlson noted, adding he was about 12 at the time.

"Mail wasn't as heavy as it is now," Mr. Carlson said, noting that after parcel post began, it "made quite a difference" in amount of heavier items.

That's not to say there weren't some big items in those days.

"Some was so large we used to have to take a wheelbarrow to bring it to the station," he said. "We used to ship cases of eggs to Olean from the farmers."

He also recalls lifting the heavy mailbags off the train at the nearby railroad station for his father, who had served as postmaster for several years.

"We had to meet the train five times a day," said Mr. Carlson, noting that only two of the trains stopped. The other three would throw off the mail pouches as they went by.

Around 1920, "when they took off four trains a week," the postal service began using trucks to transport the mail, said Mr. Carlson. "It's not changed much over those 60 years."

"The (railroad) station was here until the 1942 flood ruined it and it was bulldozed out," Mr. Carlson added.

the G. L. Carlson & Sons country store still stands, though,a reminder of the way things used to be. Mckean County Historical Society members are trying to obtain historical status for the building and thus retain its authenticity.-Olean Times Hearld- Tuesday, May 17, 1988

Turtlepoint memories, via 'special delivery
By Cora Niver
Times Herald staff writer

TURTLEPOINT, Pa.- The store housing the post office in Turtlepoint has changed hands many times over the years. So has the position of postmaster.

George L. Carlson, the store's present owner, said, "Seems to be no record of it, but i think there's been a post office here since probably the Civil War, maybe 1850, maybe before that."

Mr. Carlson said his parents were Swedish immigrants who settled in the community in the 1870s.

"The first person I know who owned (the store) was a man by the name of Williams. He was a relative of the Simpson family that lived here," said Mr. Carlson.

The first postmaster Mr. Carlson remembers hearing about was "a Miss Mullen." He also recalls a man named Frank Wanamaker - a telegrapher, freight and ticket agent - who was also a postmaster "before the start of the century."

Later, the position was taken over by James Taylor, who held it for seven years.

While Mr. Carlson was trying to recall further names, Sandra Keyser, the newest postmaster, pulled out an old certificate she had found and dusted off the previous week.

On it was inscribed the name of Sidney B. Hazen, who was postmaster from 1907 until 1920, when Mr. Carlson became co-owner of the store and postmaster. Mr. Carlson was 26 at the time. Three years later, Mr. Carlson bought out the store from co-owner John E.Case and operated it himself. He continued as postmaster for 37 years when, in 1957, his sister-in-law Lucille Murphy Carlson was appointed acting postmaster.

The next appointed postmaster was Joseph Plunkett, a war veteran, said Mr. Carlson. Mr. Plunkett appointed Lucille Carlson as assistant postmaster.

After Mr. Plunkett's death two or three years later, Mrs. Carlson was appointed postmaster. She held that position until earlier this year, when she retired after 17 years as postmaster and several years as a clerk before that.

The next postmaster appointed was Mrs. Keyser, a Shinglehouse resident, who noted that Turtlepoint's post office may offer stamp collectors something that larger post offices cannot: back issues of stamps.

Turtlepoint has many back issues available, including about 50 different wildlife varieties, which the larger post offices have likely run out of, she said.