The tiny outpost of Aladdin in northeast Wyoming is home to the state’s oldest general store, which has also served as a local post office since 1898.
But no more.
The U.S. Postal Service has discontinued its contract with the Aladdin General Store, a change that is tied, somewhat ironically, to efforts by the store’s new owner to preserve this historic treasure.
Trent Tope, who grew up in Aladdin and remembers shopping at Wyoming’s oldest continuously operating general store in his youth, bought the general store in 2019. He and his fiancée, Jordan Yates, paid off the purchase in April of last year.
Tope said when the Postal Service learned the store had a new owner, he was told that was a breach of the postal contract, which had to be held by someone owning the land underneath the post office.
Tope hired an attorney to put together a new proposal, but said the Postal Service was completely uninterested in retaining a post office in Aladdin.