The Tamaqua Post Office averages between 10,000 and 15,000 letters every day.

It’s just one of the approximate 33,000 post offices scattered across the country, and part of an agency founded in 1775.

The United States Postal Service celebrates its 250th anniversary this year.

“When you go through the history of the postal system, it is a great job. We service the community, we do it the best that we can, as safe as we can,” Tamaqua Postmaster Beth Trexler said.

In Tamaqua, mail arrives from the Postal Service’s Lehigh Valley distribution center at 4 a.m., and a clerk arrives soon after to begin readying the mail for carriers.

Some have walking routes, while others drive.

“I roll in around 6:30 or 7 (a.m.),” Trexler said. “In a typical day, I do a synopsis. I do a quick run through the floor and see what’s here for the day.”

Then she develops what she calls her game plan.

“You can have your game plan yesterday and you come in today and everything can just go haywire,” she said. “You never know what you’re going to run into.”

On a recent day, a mail truck was out of service, resulting in having to rearrange carriers’ schedules and routes.

And if someone calls off sick, Trexler needs to find someone to deliver mail on that route.

The job is to deliver the mail — and the service never stops, Trexler said.

Some days are busier than others.

“On a Monday, we probably handle about 20,000 pieces, letter-wise, and on a Friday, we handle about 10,000 pieces — so it depends on the day,” Trexler said.

As for packages, the 16 carriers deliver between 1,000 and 1,200 each day.

“It’s going to go up” as the Christmas season nears, Trexler said. “We will average about 2,000 a day, but we’ve already seen 2,800.”

Online shopping

Most of the packages are from online retailers — and the amount increases each year.

The Tamaqua Post Office delivers to the borough, Hometown and parts of West Penn Township in the 18252 ZIP code, as well as all of Barnesville.

“Our total residential deliveries are 5,971, and our total business deliveries are 382,” Trexler said.

The office also handles thousands of outgoing letters each day.

The Tamaqua Post Office was established almost 200 years ago. A framed picture of former postmasters is in Trexler’s office. The black and white photographs date back to the late 1800s.

Trexler joined the Tamaqua ranks in 2022.

Before coming to the borough, Trexler was postmaster of the Germansville Post Office in Lehigh County.

She recalled serving during the COVID-19 pandemic — one of the proudest times of her career. “We were the only business standing — or one of the few,” she recalled.

Carriers were outfitted with personal protective equipment, and signs were placed on mail trucks asking people to remain 15 feet away.

“They’re out in the fresh air but they didn’t know what they were putting in mailboxes,” Trexler said. “A lot of them were wearing gloves and masks. We didn’t know what to expect.”

There were obstacles for sure, she said, but the post office didn’t miss a beat.

“In my mind, and in my career, that’s when we shined the most,” she said.

USPS spokesman Paul F. Smith recalled how communities rallied around mail carriers during the pandemic.

“The customers and the kids just sent so many messages thanking (the USPS),” Smith said.

He remembered thank you signs, and messages written in sidewalk chalk.

“We pride ourselves on restoring normalcy to the community,” Smith said. “Whenever people see a mailman, it’s like ‘Oh, we’re getting back to normal.’ ”

As for the saying that the Postal Service delivers “through rain, snow and sleet,” Trexler and Tamaqua Post Office supervisor Jason Mullin said it’s true — and even through pandemics, blizzards and floods.

“Of course, safety is always our number one issue and number one goal,” Trexler said. “If the mail can get here, and the carriers can get here, we do what we can.”

Through rain and hurricanes

Not even destructive hurricanes — like 2005’s Hurricane Katrina or 2012’s Hurricane Sandy — could stop mail delivery in those parts of the nation.

Smith said employees whose post offices were damaged or destroyed were asked to go to nearby post offices to deliver mail.

“We do that here,” Trexler said. “There was an office that was in distress. They had water damage and they came down here and ran. I think that’s one of the good things about postal employees — you have to be quick on your feet. You have to make calls very fast, and make decisions real quick.”

At the moment, the Tamaqua Post Office is keeping track of the number of letters dropped in collection boxes. The density test will reveal whether to keep or remove the boxes.

Trexler and Mullin also make sure carriers are driving and parking safely and have secured their vehicles.

Stock also has to be ordered for the office’s three clerks.

“We’re going to start ordering Christmas stamps because people are asking for that already,” she noted.

The end of the day involves determining whether packages have been scanned and delivered.

“We’re nonstop from 6:30 to 5:30 — and we didn’t even hit our peak season,” Trexler said. “Starting Columbus Day to the first week in January, we are nonstop.”

Holiday mailings are always high, and packages will come in all shapes and sizes.

“I think the strangest thing to this day was someone mailed a potato,” Trexler said. “Someone wrote on the potato and put a postage strip on it. It was from Hawaii — and we delivered the potato.”

In fact, the Postal Service notes that it will deliver a coconut. Senders just add shipping and return addresses to the husk, have it weighed and send it as is.

“The most valuable thing mailed was the Hope Diamond,” Smith said, referring to the 45.52 carat stone. Jeweler Harry Winston shipped the rock to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., in 1958, after paying $2.44 in postage and $142.85 for $1 million in insurance.

Winston said the Postal Service was the safest and most reliable way to send gems, according to the USPS.

The USPS celebrated its 250th anniversary with a number of special events held in July.