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54. The Atmore Mail Sacks

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Updated: Apr 2, 2022


In this new age of texting and online banking, few people give any thought to how our mail was handled prior to the 1950’s. In those days much of our mail was delivered by train by way of large canvas “mail bags.” They were picked up at the train depot and delivered by truck to the post office. In small towns like Atmore, the trains would stop at the depot to pick up or drop off passengers but sometimes they would roar straight through town on their way to Montgomery or Mobile. When they did stop, men would load and unload the heavy canvas mailbags from the baggage car directly onto huge wooden handcarts.


These carts had thirty-inch high iron wheels and were loaded with the sacks than manually pulled to the trucks for transport to the post office. After loading the bags onto the truck, the men would drive to the post office and back up to the concrete platform to unload them for sorting and delivering by the men inside. In Atmore, if the trains were not going to stop they would simply throw the large canvas bags of incoming mail off onto the ground next to the tracks as they sped by. A postal employee or civilian contract worker (Atmore) would retrieve that canvas bag and load it up after the train passed.


For outgoing mail, the men would hang the bags from an out stretched metal arm next to the tracks where the conductor would lean out of the speeding baggage car and snatch it with a large iron hook and pull it into the car. The system was extremely efficient for all its simplicity. In Atmore, the big L&N diesel trains made regular runs through Atmore heading into and out of Mobile. They were a sight to behold for the townspeople as they thundered through Atmore causing the rails to click and clack rapidly while the ground shook like an earthquake. The train whistles, along with the dinging of the cross-guard alarm on Main Street, resounded against the town’s walls to create a tremendous and exciting crescendo. My job as a young boy was to run over for my grandfather Nathaniel Edward Davis and fetch the "drop off" mail sack that was thrown from the train as it sped by. "Throw off" for delivering the mail and the "mail catcher" for picking up the mail!

One of the turn of the century ghost stories in Atmore concerned one of these huge trains that passed through regularly. The story was called the “Legend of the Signalman.” The story went something like this; “there was an old man who was employed as a signalman for the L&N Railroad Company just outside the town of Atmore in the early 1900’s. His job was to light his lantern by night or use his flag by day and signal the trains in case of any emergency or the switching of the train onto another track. Anyway, one night the old man lost his balance as one of the big steam locomotives thundered past. He fell in front of the train and was instantly decapitated.


The train engineer was unaware of the accident and roared on into the dark night never realizing he was leaving a mangled mass behind. The next morning, they discovered the body of the poor man but alas they never found his head, which had apparently been carried off somewhere by the train. They buried him in one of the local cemeteries close to the tracks and were sure that would be the end of it. But stories soon surfaced of people seeing his lantern along the tracks late on dark nights still signaling the ghostly trains approaching through the mists. Many of the locals said he was still searching for his head and that his spirit would never rest until he found it.” Atmore children were also told to lay their head down on the steel rails and “listen” for the vibrations made by the approaching trains. Even though they double and triple dog dared each other to do it they couldn’t help but steal quick furtive glances down the tracks just in case one of the giant monsters was sneaking up on them and turn them into another “ghost” story!


The Old Atmore Train Depot


The mail sack carts


One of the old diesel trains that roared through Atmore in the 1940's and 1950's


Training approaching a "mail catcher" on right


Close up of "mail catcher"


Train's "hook" snatching canvas mail sack off of the "mail catcher"


Mail sack "snatched" off catcher


Bullseye!


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