Every small town has a history, and a dedicated group of volunteers in Kunkletown are trying to preserve theirs.

With a series of grants, the Eldred Township Historical Society has been working hard to renovate the town’s former post office on Kunkletown Road, which they plan to make into the home of the town’s history.

In May, the group received a Pocono Mountains Visitors Bureau Community Impact Grant for $4,800.

Eldred Township Supervisor Susan McGinty said the money would be used for some “very pretty Therma-Tru doors with new hardware.” The grant is a 50% match, so the historical society has to contribute the same amount.

In a press release, the PMVB said it has awarded 25 Community Impact Grants this year totaling $199,862. The grants are funded through the hotel occupancy tax and awarded to projects in Wayne, Pike, Monroe and Carbon counties.

The historical society also received a Local Shares Account grant in May in the amount of $23,100.

Ann Velopolcek, the township secretary and treasurer of the historical society, said the grant will be used for interior and exterior painting, and trim parts for windows and doors.

Lots of work

Over the 24 years that the historical society has leased the old two-story post office, the members have done much of the work themselves and have paid for the rest. The work has included reinstalling stairs to the basement, cleaning it out and pouring a concrete floor, replacing all of the windows in the building, fixing the chimney, redoing the electrical wiring, adding doors where they were missing, repairing the roof and building on a new double-decker porch.

“They couldn’t replace the roof on the building without replacing that part of the porch,” Velopolcek said. “They had to tear the entire porch off. It was falling off. They pulled it all down and they rebuilt it. It’s not complete because we don’t have all the details yet, but it’s in the works.”

A bit of history

The former post office sits across the street from the Stone Arch Bridge. It was originally built around 1885 to be the Kunkletown Post Office, which was first formed many years earlier.

The building held the post office on the first floor and a residence on the second floor. A double-decker porch on the front was decked out with decorative wood known architecturally as gingerbread.

An influential family

James Pearsol became the postmaster in 1891, and his family lived upstairs. He ran the post office until 1897, then again beginning in 1905. His son, Wesley Herbert Pearsol, took over as postmaster in 1914 and ran it almost continuously — except from 1930-34 — until 1951.

The Pearsols were highly involved in many aspects of the town. James Pearsol started the West End Telephone Co., which became the Blue Ridge Telephone Co. in 1911. The switchboard and first telephone in the town was in the post office. Pearsol also was active with the Chestnut Ridge Railroad, running the school and in his church, St. Matthews.

His son, who went by Herbert, ran a general store in the other half of the first floor, and built a lodge across the street that served as the meeting place for the town’s government. Velopolcek said Herbert also was a notary public and would do contracts for people.

Artifacts

Among the many artifacts the historical society members have gathered is an envelope postmarked June 11, 1934, and addressed to Herbert Pearsol. It was the date of the opening of the Benjamin Franklin Station, now known as the Benjamin Franklin Post Office, in Washington, D.C. The envelope is from Clinton B. Eilenberger, the third assistant postmaster general, with a letter commemorating the opening of the new post office. It and many other artifacts will be on display when renovation of the old post office building is completed.

Shirley Krum, vice president of the historical society, said she has the original public telephone that was in the post office. She looks forward to day it can be put on display. It is just one of the many things she has waiting for the museum.

“I think I can donate almost half the stuff in my house,” she said.

Krum grew up in Kunkletown and worked at the Sand Ridge Blouse Factory that was located behind the post office. It’s gone now, but her fond memories of working there and sitting on the steps of the post office with friends remain.

“The people were so wonderful working in there, the Pearsols, the whole family,” Krum said. “It was just a nice hangout. It was the hub of Kunkletown.”