| Additional Information: | Whitefish Bay’s first post office was established in 1874. It was operated by Lewis Scheife from 1892 to 1900 from his non-extant general store at the southwest corner of Silver Spring and Marlborough Drives. The location of this store was immediately northeast of the Milwaukee, Lake Shore & Western Railroad tracks and depot, by which mail bags were delivered to the store where customers walked to receive their mail. The postal service operated in this manner until approximately 1912 and at which time the concept of mail delivery became popular.
By the 1940s, the United States Postal Service was operating in the village as a contract station. In 1943, the postal station was located at Emmerling’s Ice Cream Parlor, 529 E. Silver Spring Drive. By 1945, a temporary structure, formerly used as a skating rink warming house at Klode Park, was moved to a village-owned lot on which has since been constructed Sendik’s Fruit Market, from which to conduct postal services. In 1947, when the site’s location was sold to Frank, Ignatius, Thomas, and Joseph Balistreri, future operators of Sendik’s Fruit Market, the temporary post office was relocated multiple times: first to a vacant lot that is now a small public park east of the The Bay Liquor Shoppe Building at 342 E. Silver Spring Drive, a year later to the public parking lot south of 529 E. Silver Spring Drive, after a few months to what was then a lot at 434 E. Silver Spring Drive, and then in 1949 back to the vacant lot on Silver Spring Drive
Due to the village’s rapid growth, a permanent Post Office Branch with increased service was desired by village’s businesses and residents. In the early 1950s, bids were sought for a new post office building. A contract was awarded to Harry Forman to construct a brick and stone trimmed building to be leased by the United States Postal Service. This building, completed in 1952, was leased for 15 years by the post office and located on Silver Spring Drive. This station operated as a branch of the Milwaukee Post Office, with mail being processed at the downtown Milwaukee post office and delivered to this location early every morning. Whitefish Bay is currently served by the North Shore branch location of the Milwaukee Post Office at 5651 N Lydell Avenue in the City of Glendale. |
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