A PARCEL OF HISTORY
Limekiln Post Office stays close to its roots for past 150 years
In its 150 years, the Limekiln Post Office moved twice, but never far.
“To the best of my knowledge, Limekiln is the only post office in Berks that has remained within 200 feet of its original location throughout its history,” Berks County historian George M. Meiser IX said.
The post office at 820 Limekiln Road, Exeter Township, recently celebrated its sesquicentennial.
Its first home was in the old stone combination hotel and general store at the intersection of Oley Turnpike and Limekiln roads.
“If you owned a hotel-general store, you really wanted a post office in your business place,” Meiser said. “It brought potential customers to your establishment several times a week.”
Now a private home, the former hotel-store was built in 1835 by brothers Jacob and Peter Snyder to replace an earlier log tavern.
Owners of businesses that housed post offices were often men of means who owned land and other buildings in an area, Meiser said. A postal designation put their establishments on the map, and small postal hamlets often grew into bustling villages.
The Snyders were already well on theway to getting their
name on the map when the post office opened, he said.
Their Schneider/Snyder ancestors were among the earliest settlers in the area. The nearby family graveyard contains the oldest tombstone in Oley Township and one of the oldest in Berks County: that of Johannes Schneider, whowas bornin1687 and died in 1743.
The crossroads village straddling the Exeter-Oley boundary originally was called Snyderville after the family.
“The Snyders wanted their post office named Snyderville,” Meiser said, “but as there already was a Snyderville in Schuylkill County anothe rname had to be chosen.”
There were no ZIP codes before July 1963, he explained, so unique post office names were essential to guiding mail delivery.
A postal authority came up with the name Limekiln after looking out the bar room window and seeing a stone limekiln in use across the road, Meiser said.
Such kilns were used to produce quicklime or burnt lime, which was spread on farmers’ fields to offset soil acidity.
Because new postal designations were sometimes given to places that long had been known by another name, several Berks villages wound up being called by two names, Meiser said, but Limekiln has three.
“For obvious reasons, it also was referred to as Oley Line,” he said.
The post office and general store remained in the Snyder hotel until the Patriotic Order Sons of America lodge was built across the street in 1889.
By that time, the hotel was seeing increased use for public meetings, political gatherings and special events, including shooting matches and fox hunts, Meiser said. The Snyders were glad the store and post office moved and converted the vacated space to a large dining hall, he said.
The post office occupied the first-floor right side of the P.O.S. of A. lodge for nearly 70 years. Longtime postmasters included George Keim and Harold Endy, Meiser said.
In 1958, Endy built a new combination post-office and self-serve store at the present location, site of the old hotel barn.
Since 2014, the property has been owned by Andrew and Kristina Kochel, owners of Andy Pepper’s, a breakfast and brunch cafe, which shares the building with the post office.
Postmaster Karl Ponce, 36, of Wyomissing, the sole staffer, has been in charge since October.
“At Christmas it gets busy,” he said, “but it’s not something I can’t handle.”
Meiser, the proud holder of Box 1, is among those who drop in daily to post letters and packages or check for mail, Ponce said.
There is a story behind the box, Meiser said, which for many years was held by an elderly Snyder, a direct descendant of the Limekiln Snyders. After the man died, the box sat empty. So Meiser asked Endy, postmaster at the time, who would get it.
“He said, ‘I don’t know. Do youwant it?’” Meiser recalled. “‘Yes,’ wasmy answer.”
The Limekiln post office was not the only one in the vicinity to open in 1870.
“On the very day Limekiln Post Office was established, Griesemersville Post Office also opened,” he said.
In November that same year, a post office also opened in Jacksonwald.
“It was no coincidence that all three were along the newly opened Oley Turnpike,” Meiser said, “and allwere installed in hotel-general store operations.”
Completed in 1869 at a cost of $50,000, the Oley Turnpike was paved over a well-established thoroughfare, he said. Five hotels, two churches and several farms lined its 10-mile stretch between the old Black Bear Inn in St. Lawrence and Pleasantville in Oley.
The road has the distinction of being one of the last privately owned toll roads in the nation, Meiser said.
Of the four post offices along the route, only Limekiln remains.
“At one time, Berks had 140 post offices,” Meiser said. “Two, Alliance in Bethel and Fetherolfsville in Albany Township, were in tiny chicken houses.”
After the Rural Free Delivery act of 1902was passed, the effect was felt almost immediately, he said, noting 50 small Berks post offices were closed between 1902 and 1905.
Limekiln is one of 47 small post offices inthe county still operating.