Odd Cancel On A 1925 Square Deal Filling Station Cover

Not sure what is going on here. Looks like someone put a star on cover and signature on a stamp before it got cancelled? Side note this company was the first to sell gasohol.

In early 1925, while La Grande had city carrier services, it also had two rural routes.

My guess is the star and manuscript name was applied by a rural carrier who then took the envelope into town where it was machine cancelled.

USPOD archives may have the carrier listed by name. That is something John Becker tends to find and post.

My ears were burning ..... and I believe Parcelpostguy is going in the right direction on this.

Very interesting cover!

Ignoring the flag cancel, it has some resemblance to a down-the-route RFD cancel. The star made me think of "Star routes", which were essentially private contract routes to carry bulk (pouched) mail between towns occasionally serving a few patron boxes along those routes, very similar to RFD service.

While it does not exactly cover the time period, I see in Postal Bulletin #13724, dated March 28, 1925 an announcement of a star route going through La Grande, OR:


So star routes were certainly used in that part of Oregon, confirmed by the listings for the offices in Union County, Oregon from the 1935 Official Postal Guide noting several of the towns there have star routes serving a small number of patrons:


The nationwide employee lists stop in 1911, so no luck there.

Bottom line on my guess: you have a cover picked up by a star route carrier who "protected the revenue" with a star and his name and deposited it at the next office he came to. If it is such a use, a provisional star route cancel is very uncommon. The first I have seen. Mail addressed to/from star routes in also challenging to find.

Thanks Parcel post guy you are on it again! Also thanks John for the details. You guys always come through! This is beyond my knowledge.

My answer is still only an experienced guess. It is not absolute. Stay tuned as others may have a different explanation or theory. I would be happy to add something like this to my collection for further study.

Thank you but I did not include star routes as John Becker included. In the big picture of rural delivery, few addresses were served by star route carriers. But some routes included addresses for delivery and thus collection. As with today you can hand over outgoing mail to any postal employee. Thus a star route driver, even without customer delivery addresses, could be given outgoing mail. A star mark and the employee's name would make sense for a star route driver. There are many RFD cancelling devices used by RFD carriers, but I do not recall seeing a similar one for star routes.

In either case, Star Route or RFD carrier, they brought their collected day's mail to the La Grand Office (located inside a government building) for cancelling, sorting, routing and dispatch to final destination.

Edit: To be clear, the star and name were not just added for 'fun' but likely for a postal reason by a postal employee.

Is this another rural carrier manuscript cancel?

Yes, cancelled by the RFD carrier. Typical of mail delivered "down the route" the same day and not even brought back to the office for the next day's delivery.

Being a couple of minutes late to this party, only agreement is needed.

SO this was picked up and delivered by the same carrier on the same day?

Yes, Although a few years later, here is the regulation from the 1913 "Postal Laws and Regulation" volume describing what you have.

Some carriers omitted some of the information, but they still "protected the revenue" with their indelible pencil.