 |
When calamity strikes, as it often has in the Appalachian community of Swannanoa, North Carolina, the “proud, fierce, and maybe a little crazy” working folks who live in the valley along the Swannanoa River “get up off their knees and get to fix’n the problem together,” says Carla Hollar, who’s lived here for more than 50 years.
On May 7, 2025, Hollar and more than 50 of her neighbors gathered in the town’s brewery not to drink (though a few beers were had), but to write hundreds of postcards to postal officials as well as state, local, and federal representatives who might sway postal service decision makers to bring the Swannanoa Post Office back home.
More than six months after Hurricane Helene destroyed much of the town, says Kathryn Locane, a 20-year resident, “We don’t have a grocery store. We don’t have a bank or even an ATM. We don’t have a hardware store. And we don’t have our post office. Those are all basic services. If you don’t have those, it really takes a toll on your mental health.”
It isn’t the first time residents in this small town have banded together to rebuild. The post office was established in 1923, at the same time Beacon Manufacturing Company, which would become the largest blanket mill in the world, came to town. The mill shut down in 2002 as textile production and jobs moved offshore. A year later, an arsonist burned the buildings down.
Although hundreds of people lost their jobs to the mill’s closure, they didn’t give up. The company houses, in what is still known as Beacon Village, were sold off to families who found Swannanoa more affordable than nearby Asheville. “A lot of people here, including many seniors who occupy 95 units of affordable housing just down the street from the PO, don’t have cars,” says Dan Slagle, a former post office employee, “but they could get by because we had a grocery store, a hardware store, and the post office all within walking distance.”
After the mill closed, Swannanoa working class folks wore the town’s nickname “Swannanowhere” like a badge–or a secret. Businesses like Okie Dokie’s Smokehouse, Native Kitchen and Social Club, and a Harley Davidson dealership moved in, serving barbecue, burgers, and bikes to townsfolk seeking the slower pace of a small town between the busier retirement and tourist communities of Black Mountain and Asheville.
Then came the pandemic. Native Kitchen and other small businesses closed as unemployment soared and the tourists stayed home. Swannanoa got creative, rallying around Velosolutions, an international bike park design and construction company, that proposed to develop the 40-acre site of the former mill into a bike park, walking path, and event space for music, food trucks, and movies. Terra Nova Brewing opened up a tap room across the street (in space that since Helene, has often doubled as meeting space for non-profits and county officials planning the communities next iteration).
Then, on the night of Sept. 26, 2024, came Helene. The river, swollen with more than 30 inches of rain rushing downhill from the mountains, flooded more than half of the houses in Beacon Village, covered the bike park in inches of mud, and surged through the Post Office, grocery store, and hardware store. More than 40 people died in Buncombe County. Because the town is unincorporated, there’s no city council or local government to address what are still huge needs for disaster recovery. Neighbors have banded together to close the gap; a constellation of nonprofits under the umbrella Swannanoa Grassroots Alliance gathers three times a week to problem-solve, collaborate, and delegate tasks.
Many of the same folks met this month at Terra Nova to write postcards demanding that the post office reopen. “We got a mobile unit for a month right after the storm,” Slagle said, but now we have not had a post office since November 21st. People have to drive 26 miles round trip to get their mail, their prescriptions, their social security checks, or packages.” The Swannanoa Post Office and its PO boxes served hundreds of folks who live miles up steep mountain roads or on properties where mailboxes, bridges, and access roads went down the river the night of the hurricane.
“Now residents have to have someone drive them 30 to 40 minutes to pick up their mail, and not just anybody can pick up their mail. If they want someone else to get it for them, then both people have to go in in-person and fill out a form to authorize a representative for the original box holder,” says Slagle.
His frustration is echoed by Tissica Schock, whose Beacon Village house, elevated on a small hill, became a sanctuary for neighbors the night of the storm. “If you have a job, it is nearly impossible to find time to go out there and get your mail between 8:30 and 5, as opposed to having the freedom to check my post office box in Swannanoa, which is what I paid for when I purchased it.”
“Besides,” says Slagle, “You’re really not a town without a post office. It’s kind of a community hub.” In rural America, the local post office with the flag waving high and its iconic blue drop boxes out front is more than a place to buy stamps; it’s also the starting point for directions to houses without numbers and the water cooler for neighbors eager to swap news.
Slagle notes that nine rural post offices in Western North Carolina remain closed more than six months after the storm, and he fears that the government is looking for ways to save. “Short of privatizing the U.S. Postal Service, not reopening post offices impacted by natural disasters is one way they will do it.” Under normal circumstances, when the U.S. Postal Service decides to close a post office, it must allow for a public comment period and a possible appeal to the Postal Regulatory Commission. However, after a natural disaster, the emergency suspension of service can be extended to a permanent closure.
Philip Bogenberger, manager of Atlantic Area Corporate Communications for the Postal Service, has indicated that the post office will likely not reopen in its current location because the building is owned by the Ingles Corporation, which hasn’t revealed a plan to reopen the grocery store or repair the PO building.
The lack of communication or a timetable from the postal service and from Ingles managers is an added frustration for town residents, who claim bureaucracy and red tape are the worst part of disaster recovery. “They got the building dried out,” says Slagle, “and the post office boxes are still in there. I keep calling anybody I can think of to get answers, but nobody is talking.”
Josephine Giardin, echoes Slagle’s frustration. “We had a meeting last week where they asked us what we want Swannanoa to look like in 20 years,” she said as she picked up another postcard. “I’m 75 years old. In 20 years, I’ll be dead. I want to have a post office and a grocery store way before that.”
Carla Hollar, who is also the town librarian, transmutes her frustration into determination. “We’re going to find a way to get our post office back. A town is more than houses or a sign on the highway. It’s small businesses and the grocery store and the bank, and, of course, a post office. Mail and packages are still an essential form of communication. The first post office in America opened in a tavern in 1639. Now we’re back in a tavern, delivering the mail to our public officials: We need our post office, and we need it now.”
This article first appeared on The Daily Yonder and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
