BUTLER — The post office in Butler has a brass slot in the lobby wall, below the box windows, with a hand-lettered card that reads OLD BUTLER, and something goes into it about twice a year.
Postmaster Arlene Greer, 58, said the slot was there when she took the job in 2009 and was there for the three postmasters before her. It opens onto a wooden bin about the size of a bread box. At closing every Friday she lifts the flap and writes the count in the margin of the daily sheet before she locks up. Most Fridays the count is zero, and she writes the zero.
“Last spring it was four envelopes and a postcard of Main Street from the thirties,” Greer said. “The fall before that it was a seed packet. Just the packet. I wasn’t sure it counted as mail, so I called Johnson City and they said write it down.”
By Monday morning the bin is empty. Greer said she has never seen who takes it.
“I open at eight and there’s always somebody in the lobby waiting on a box, and by the time I get to the bin it’s empty,” she said. “I don’t ask, mostly because the Monday truck is usually late and I’ve got that to deal with.”
The town of Butler moved uphill when Watauga Lake filled in the late 1940s. The Postal Service’s regional office had no comment on the slot.