Tales from the No Man’s Land Museum: The Historic Optima Post Office
The Panhandle was homesteaded over 100 years ago. The hardships of difficult work and challenging weather were made easier by the fact that before Statehood in 1907, there were United States Post Offices. When settlers homesteaded on a quarter section or 160 acres, there were often four families on a section of land. To accommodate such large numbers of people, post offices were scattered every few miles. They provided a link to their loved ones in distant states and a place to gather and exchange news and fellowship. The No
Man's Land Museum
in Goodwell honors the Optima Post Office which served the community for 102 years, but, unfortunately, no longer exists.
Optima in Texas County is eight miles northeast of Guymon. According to George H. Shirk in his book, Oklahoma Place Names, Optima is a Latin word, the plural of Optimum, meaning “best possible result”. Sue Weissinger mentioned in her book, Cattle, Wheat, and Oil: Oklahoma Panhandle Railroads, that Optima was originally settled by Kansans in 1886 on land used by the Carter Ranch. William Henry Miller was one of those men, and he chose the name, Optima. Miller was also the person who petitioned for a mail route that would leave Hugoton, Kansas and go to the new town of Optima. (Optima had originally been two miles north of its present location but moved to be
on the Rock Island Railroad.) Miller mistakenly listed the location as being in Indian Territory.
When Optima celebrated its 100th birthday in 1986, an article in the Guymon Daily Herald on 12 September 1986 stated
that “The oldest post of
fice in Oklahoma is having a birthday”. The Postmaster in Hugoton applied on July 1, 1886 to have a post office established at “Optima, Neutral Strip, Indian Territory”. On September 13, 1886, Optima Post Office became official with William H. Miller as Postmaster. The old bank building was the original Optima post office. In 1891, the post office designation went from Indian Territory to Beaver County. (The entire Panhandle was Beaver County when it became Oklahoma Territory in 1890. In 1907, the address changed from Beaver County to Texas County.
The newspaper article on the 100th birthday reported that Evelyn L. Papay was Postmaster, and Nancy Sassin was the clerk. They served 300 people and put out 300 to 700 pieces of mail each day. Nancy recalled that the post office served a close community, and if they received a letter addressed to “Grandma”, they knew how to deliver that letter. She reported that the history of the post office included hanging the mail sack on a pole by the railroad tracks. Workers on the train hooked the sack, and the train continued traveling without stopping. Sacks of mail went east twice a day and west once a day. As late as 1959, the mail sacks were still being hung in the same manner with the train workers retrieving the sacks.
On 14 October 1988, the Guymon Daily Herald reported that the 102 year old post office was closing. At that time, the post office was in a garage building next to Evelyn Papay's home and was connected to her home. She had been postmaster from 1967 to 1987. Evelyn had already retired, and Nancy Sassin was “officer in charge” for about a year and was serving in that position at the closing of the post office. Nancy remembered that Optima had gone from a fourth class post office to a third class – which was determined by stamp sales.
Cluster boxes and a collection box sadly replaced the 102 years old post office. A rural carrier from Hooker now delivers the mail to the boxes. Only memories remain of a once vibrant post office and the early settlers and their families and their descendants.
The No Man's Land Museum preserves items related to post offices and the Panhandle area and
Oklahoma in the Archive Room. It is available to the public for research. The Museum is open Tuesday – Saturday, 10:00 – 12:00 AM and 1:00 – 4:00 PM – closed Sunday, Monday, and state holidays. Please consider wearing a mask. Follow the Museum on Facebook@NoMansLandMuseum.