For more than two years, residents of Leggett, a small town at the northern tip of Mendocino County, had to endure a 30-minute drive up Highway 101 to Garberville just to pick up their mail. That detour officially ended on Monday morning when the Leggett Post Office reopened at its original location on Drive Thru Tree Road, more than two years after a devastating fire destroyed the facility.
The fire broke out on March 1, 2024, when a lightning strike hit a nearby tree and the flames spread to the post office. No one was hurt because the office was closed at the time, but the blaze wiped out the only place in the area where residents could buy stamps, send packages, or access their P.O.
boxes. In many rural areas like Leggett, there is no home mail delivery, so the loss of the post office was a major blow to the community.
During the rebuilding period, the U.S. Postal Service rerouted Leggett’s mail to Garberville, about 30 minutes north.
For residents accustomed to a short trip into town, the round trip turned a quick errand into a half-day chore. The last mail pickup in Garberville occurred at the close of business on June 12, just days before the reopening.
The new post office, which opened its doors on June 15, 2026, offers full retail and P.O. box services.
Many customers who arrived on opening morning were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the building. "It's a beautiful new post office," said Shannon Hurst, a postal worker on hand for the reopening.
"We expected something like a modular trailer, but this is really nice."
The lobby features new P.O. boxes and parcel lockers, and the office maintains its previous hours: Monday through Friday, 9:30 a.m.
to 12:30 p.m. and 1:00 p.m.
to 4:00 p.m., with 24-hour access to the P.O. box lobby.
Box holders need a photo ID to pick up a new key.
Postmaster Kristi Rico expressed gratitude in a statement: "The postal service is thrilled to reopen the Leggett Post Office and resume regular operations in our community. We sincerely thank our customers for their patience and continued business."
For Leggett, the two-year detour is finally over. The mail is home again, and what residents feared would be a modular trailer turned out to be a real, well-built post office.