WHERE IN AMERICA ARE YOU?
by Randy Karr

You are visiting the smallest post office in the United States. Sitting on the edge of an inhospitable swamp nicknamed “the river of grass,” the 8'4" by 7'3" post office building you see was converted from a storage shed after the original post office was destroyed by fire in 1953. It has been in continuous use ever since, providing postal services and mail delivery to the Seminole and Miccosukee Indians living in the region. Inside, there is only room for one postal worker and one customer.

The postal worker you see looking out spends most of her days filling requests from stamp collectors who want the famous Ochopee postmark and posing for busloads of picture-taking tourists. The post office is located on U.S. 41, a highway that begins in Copper Harbor, Michigan, and ends in Miami, Florida. Where in America are you, anyway? Name the town (population 11) where the post office is located, which is surrounded by the Big Cypress Preserve, and the name of the 275-mile stretch of U.S. 41 between Tampa to Miami, whose construction through primeval forests and swamps is considered among the world's great engineering feats.

Click on the photo to reveal the answer.

©2009 Randy Karr