The Dokken Post Office burned to the ground on this day in 1907. Since the post office was actually located in the residence of the Hatton family, one could also say that the farmhouse of Sherman Hatton burned on this day in 1907. The Hatton family had been in charge of postal service on the Dokken route since June 22, 1905; the fire forced the relocation of the post office to the home of Ole N. Dokken, the man for whom the post office was named.

Only one of hundreds of rural post offices established across North Dakota at the turn of the century, the Dokken Post Office served the rural community of Renville County. Mail was brought to the farm of Sherman Hatton by stage from Mohall. Local families were then able to travel a much shorter distance to the Dokken office to collect their mail. Similarly, Ole Dokken was only one stage driver among many working in North Dakota before the advent of the modern postal system. The hardy stage drivers braved blizzards, storms, and freezing cold to ensure that rural residents received their mail, sometimes travelling dozens of miles by stage daily and, at times, for only a single letter. Drivers often had to break their own trails, as there were not even roads for the coaches to travel by.

Joslin Post Office was the first post office established in Renville County, located four miles east of Tolley, North Dakota. The office opened for business in 1885; stage drivers carried mail deliveries from Devils Lake to Burlington, and from Burlington on to Joslin. A rancher by the name of Joe Overholt served as the county’s first stage driver. The post office had no specific route and little regulations, so Overholt often travelled out of his way to make deliveries to remote ranchers. Homesteaders even began picking up their mail from his home, which soon became its own small post office. At the turn of the century, homesteaders flooded the county and makeshift post offices sprang up to serve the new residents. The Dokken office was only one such example. With the coming of the railroad in the first decade of the twentieth century, many of the rural post offices and stage routes became obsolete, fading from memory. The last mail stage line in Renville County ran from Mohall to Dokken. This line was closed in April of 1909, along with the small Dokken Post Office.

Source:
http://www.renvillecounty.org/history

--Jayme L. Job

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