Photo – Yosemite Postmaster Ellen Damin and her mother, Lucy Persons, outside the Yosemite Post Office in May 2025.
The Postal Service this month celebrated the 100th anniversary of its building in Yosemite Village. Completed in 1925, the two-story facility — with wood shingle siding on top and stone siding on bottom — was designed by Gilbert Stanley Underwood, the architect who would later design the famed Ahwahnee Hotel down the street.
The Postal Service has, for years, considered closing or consolidating rural post offices, which are expensive for the financially strapped agency to run. But in far-flung places such as Yosemite — with spotty internet and cell service, no instant Amazon delivery as well as few brick-and-mortar stores and pharmacies — they are a lifeline.
“I know how important this post office is to daily life, especially here in the Yosemite Valley,” Damin told the crowd at a centennial celebration this month.
She added: “In the mail is where a lot of everyday supplies arrive for those living here. The hikers on the Pacific Crest and John Muir trails, the climbers camping on the side of El Capitan — resupply parcels are crucial for them to continue their journeys.”
