The Whistler Post Office was very small and it was located next door to McDonoughs Ice House. Right behind it was The Water Tank that served its purposed when the steam engines filled up their water tanks. The ice house sold ice there for many years. One day we were sitting around Hudsons Gas Station at the corner of Engine and Fourth Streets when a young black boy ran by and he was flying. Naturally boys with nothing to do went down the street to see what was going on because right behind the boy was a worker or two from the ice house. Workers had been working on the new Bethany Baptist Church that day but had knocked off earlier. The boy had decided to reach in the window had the ice house and grabbed all the money from a tray and run with it through the old railroad shop building. The workers were in a car and drove around the Gould Street route and then to Fourth Street about the time the boy got there. The boy ran down to the partially built church building where he ran out of gas. The workers cornered him and by then the boy was on his knees in the dirt with the money in his hand. By then he was out of breath and no longer able to run. My friend and I had seen all we wanted to see and that was what was going on. I never did know the outcome of the robbery but I imagined that they got the money back and let the young boy go on home. He couldnt have been more that ten years old and he lived in the area down Engine Street and I had seen him many times walking up the street to the black school on second street. I didnt condone what he did but I sort of felt sorry for him. The post office next door was very small and as far as I ever knew only two employees worked there. We didnt have home delivery in those days at our house and we had to walk over there to get our mail. The woman that worked there was smart aleck and I hated to go ask her for the mail. She always had something smart to say to me. Sometimes I would ask for our next door neighbors mail and she almost made me show my ID which I didnt have. The man that worked there was O.K. I knew both of their names but both are dead now and it would serve no purpose to tell their names. The ironic thing about the story is, when she died the church asked for volunteers to be pallbearers for her. I volunteered and when we were carrying her to her final resting place, I thought to myself, I guess that will show her. The old water tank has been torn down for a number of years and it served its purpose. Ive watch many times when the smaller train engines would pull up beside the tank and fill up. They tore it down a few years ago and that is part of Whistler History that will be gone forever. Some of the boys in the neighborhood used to climb up the ladder to the walkway around the tank but I never did like climbing that high. I did like to try to throw rocks up to walkway. When I was able to finally throw one up there it was like I reached a milestone in my life. Rocks were always plentiful around the tracks.
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 22:21:24 +0000