Curious PA Postmarks

This week I've been working through the collection that I purchased from ratio411. So far I've scanned about 300 postmarks (and I've just scratched the surface). Here are postmarks from towns that stood out to me. I'll post more as I work the scan and edit the rest of the collection.



Pillow, PA. My favorite so far. Present population: 290. Named after General Gideon Pillow, a hero of the Mexican-American War.



Oliphant Furnace, Pa. I tried to look up the zip-code on USPS.com but nothing returned so I'm assuming this PO isn't there anymore. Also not to be confused with...



Olyphant, Pa.



Paradise, Pa. Sounds like a nice place to live! Small town of about 1,000.



Presto, Pa.



Plumsteadville, Pa.



This was my first time seeing the "REPORT OBSCENE MAIL TO YOUR POSTMASTER" slogan cancel. If you Google the slogan you'll find out why this slogan was taken out of use in an ABA Journal article from 1966.



Oil City, Pa. Local slogan cancel.



Philly Station Cancel



Another Station Cancel.



And one more.

-P.Bear

Had to share the finding of the demise of that "Report Obscene Mail..." slogan cancellation:




Didn't bother to look it up any further, but I just wonder who the Senator was that pulled it from use.

By the way, the Oliphant Furnace, PA post office was discontinued in 1978. In operation from 1878-1978.

Looks like you got a very nice collection there!

Very cool. I'm a native Pennsylvanian and their are a lot of references to "furnace" in everything from road nemaes to towns & cities. I believe it's from the giant brick furnaces used to fire bricks for building everything from roads to houses. also there are huge earthwork furnaces around too. If you travel through PA. your almost guaranteed to see one along the roads and highways usually buried in English ivy and raspberry brambles. Some are very historic. I used to live by a Furnace run road in Jersey Shore PA. I just thought I'd shed a little light on that. =]

I love that "obscene" mail cancel.
Never seen that one before.

I glanced through looking for Slate Lick PA, but I think that PO
was probably retired before this collection was put together.

Where did the question about Slake Lick, PA come from? Was it part of this collection? I find it curious that according to Jim Forte's Postal History web site, Slate Lick was a post office that's been closed for more than a century. Was in operation from 1830-1906.

wt1, regarding the postmark, I read the same snippet that you did about the discontinuance of the "obscene" postmark.

However, J. Edward Day, the postmaster who abolished the "Report Obscene Mail..." postmark, is quoted in the ABA Article as saying:

"I ordered discontinuance of... postmark die... "Report Obscene..."... [since] Many members of the public had found this highly offensive, especially when the cancellation appeared on their Christmas cards or their children's mail."

Whether this the real reason why he retracted the cancel or whether this was an excuse that he used to cover-up a complaint from his higher-ups - we might never know?!

-P.Bear

I found yet another quote that relates to that slogan cancel:

Slate lick is still has residents to this very day actually but no post office that I know of there. Too small of a town (now). It's right by "Big Pine" or Pine Creek and the old N.Y.C. & H.R.R. line that's now defunct of course but has been re-purposed as that "Rails-to-Trails" hiking rout that follows the old rail lines. The tracks are all tore up for the most part and is sought after as "rail steel" and brings a huge premium in the steel market. But yeah Slate lick is still there because I was just up that way last weekend. Weather it's on the map or not I couldn't tell you but there are residents up there "in the sticks" as we say here.

No doubt near Slate Run, which I have fly fished and which runs into Pine Creek. A very good trout stream.

You bet there's great trout fishing up that way! I've landed some gorgeous native brookies and brown trout up there then we all go to celebrate at either the Wagon Wheel, the Blackwell hotel or up at the "clown lounge" up at the little pine state park and dam.

Earlier reference to Slate Lick, PA prompts me to attach this link to an old thread (from 2008) that shows several period postmarks from that area (about halfway down the first page):

https://goscf.com/t/3095