Fort Peck Post Office Reopens After Five Months

After months of traveling back and forth, residents of Fort Peck now have a little shorter drive for their post office needs. According to the United States Postal Service (USPS) Manager of Customer Relations John Sandness operations of the Fort Peck Post Office have resumed as of Aug. 1.

The Fort Peck Post Office closed in March due to issues with the boiler and asbestos within the building, making it unsafe for not only the postal workers but the community as well. Mail was redistributed to the Nashua Post Office, causing residents within Fort Peck inconvenience when needing postal services.

After hearing from Fort Peck residents and local officials, Montana Senator Tester (D) wrote a letter to United States Postal Service District Manager William Schwartz and Vice President Eduardo Ruiz urging the Postal Service “to locate a suitable space to reopen a facility in Fort Peck and to ask...to share information on the timeline for when that location would be open to serve local customers.”

Though the Senator agreed the temporary move to Nashua for post service needs was an appropriate short-term solution while USPS worked with the local office’s landlord and other stakeholders to address the issues, he stressed in the letter “USPS must work quickly to reinstate operations in Fort Peck. It is also critical that USPS management communicates its plans clearly with the roughly 300 postal customers served by the Fort Peck office.”

On Aug. 30, Sandness wrote Senator Tester stating “Be assured that it is our mission to provide all customers with quality customer postal services. On Aug. 1, 2022, I was informed that the repairs at the Fort Peck Main Office had been completed and permission was granted to re-occupy the facility and resume operations.”

Upon hearing the news, Senator Tester expressed in a statement: “Folks depend on their local post offices for everything from live-saving medication to paychecks to critical equipment to run their businesses. No Montanans should have to drive hours to mail a letter or pick up a package, which is why I pushed USPS to get the Fort Peck Post Office back up and running as soon as possible. I’m glad to see that they’ve reopened the facility, and look forward to working with USPS to make sure rural post offices like this one have the resources they need to serve their communities without interruption.”