ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, July 25, 1996 TAG: 9607250017
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-4 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: NEWPORT
SOURCE: CLAYTON BRADDOCK STAFF WRITER
This village may be small, but it's big enough to do some bragging.
It has the largest post office in Giles County. And the front door will be open for business soon.
Construction of the U.S. Postal Service's new home in eastern Giles County is complete - all 3,000 square feet of it - but no official date for the opening of the building has been set.
A new metal flagpole is in place and waiting for a flag and a stiff breeze. New paper clips, paper, furniture and other materials have been ordered, but not yet delivered.
The building is the largest postal structure in the county, according to an unofficial gauge of county post offices. All the other Postal Service buildings were erected many years ago, but regional postal officials declined to provide details.
No blueprints and other postal records are on file in the county courthouse, said John Mills, county building inspector, making it impossible to give precise measurements of each of the postal structures in Pearisburg, Glen Lyn, Narrows, Eggleston and Staffordsville.
The Newport post office is larger than the others because it was just completed. Many of the older post offices are smaller because they were built when the county and its towns served smaller populations.
The smallest post office in the county is in Ripplemead, about 500 square feet. The Staffordsville and Eggleston offices are about the same size.
Other unofficial measures include Pearisburg and Pembroke - each about 1,000 to 1,400 square feet.
The new Newport post office is on Virginia 42, next to the Super Val-u Grocery at the intersection with U.S. 460.
LENGTH: Short : 43 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ALAN KIM/Staff. The new Newport post office is theby CNBlargest postal structure in the county, according to an unofficial
gauge of county post offices.