This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Stevens, Hendrickson, Reeves Classification: Lookup Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/ok.2ADE/4109 Message Board Post: THE SIDNEY ARGUS - HERALD. January 9, 1930. "A LONG TIME AT IT".-- After a period of twenty-four years carrying the mail to patrons on the various rural routes out of Sidney, C. W. Stevens has retired in favor of younger hands. Charley began in 1905 on route two, following Herman Reeves, the first carrier on that route after it was established, but who served only a short time. Mr. Stevens was six years on this route, then put on route three, a little later again given route two, and finally assigned to route one, on which he has served something like ten years. So there is not a mail route out of Sidney that has not at some time been served by him. Routes have been changed since his beginning, lengthened in some instances, shortened in others, so it is not possible to compute his daily average. However, it would be safe to say thirty miles. And he has taken few layoffs. Three hundred days a year would be a fair average coverage by him, or 9,900 miles every year. Twenty four years at 9,000 miles per year would be--how many times around the earth? You figure it; we are not so good at mathematics. When he first began he drove a team altogether. There was only one other carrier at the time--"Uncle Billy" Henderson (sic), pioneer carrier on route one. Daily these two plodded over the more than thirty miles of country roads, from an early morning start to late in the evening. Mr. Henderson quit before the automobile came into use, but Mr. Stevens bought an old Ford, which he says was worn out when he got it, and made it give him 50,000 more miles. In all that time he has had but one mishap worth mentioning. A few years ago he slipped off into a ditch. For two or three days he felt a distress in one side. Finally he went to a doctor and asked if he could find the cause. "Nothing but two or three broken ribs," said the physician. "That so?" replied Charley, "that's not much, but I guess I'll lay off today." It now seems doubtful whether a successor will be appointed. All things point to consolidation of the three routes into two routes, with increased mileage on each. A postal inspector here some time ago intimated that things would be permitted to go on, up to the time of Mr. Stevens' retirement on the age provision after which the above change would be considered. N.B.: The first rural route carrier out of Sidney was named Hendrickson, not Henderson. R. F. D. out of Sidney began on July 1, 1901, about the same time as that service began in Range forty in Fremont county. The difference was, that the entire Range 40 was established at that time, while in Sidney, only the Sidney No. l R. F. D. was inaugurated in Range 42.--W.F.