Delivering the mail in the northeast corner of Wyoming can now be done with a Jeep Compass on most days.
There was a time when it needed a Willys Jeep or a four-wheel-drive truck. And even then, there were days of struggle.
Hulett’s Ione Spangler should know. Her family has been doing a 66-mile route that covers homes and ranches from Hulett to Alzada, Montana for several decades.
Now 72, she plans to give up her delivery contract and turn over the route to another contractor at the end of November.
In a letter to the local paper, she joked with her readers that if she bid for another six-year renewal they would see her needing to evolve into a different means of transportation.
“I would probably have to finish it with a walker or a motorized wheelchair, pulling a little wagon with packages,” she said. “Our family has been doing this for 54 years.”
Spangler told Cowboy State Daily the family never planned to get involved in taking letters and packages to ranches in the region, but in her father’s case and in her own, it just became a responsibility that needed to be done.
The family arrived in northeast Wyoming in the 1940s and ranched. She said her dad, Bill Spangler, agreed to act as a bondsman for a mail carrier in the 1970s, meaning he would ensure the mail-route contract was fulfilled should anything happen to the carrier, Lee Nora Davis.
“She became ill and gave up the route. And where he had signed as a bondsman, the Postal Service contacted him and told him he now had a mail contract,” Spangler said. “He finished out her contract and then he just kept bidding it and continued to do it.”
Davis did the route for 40 years previously. She used horses in the beginning, some kept at a ranch along the way. In 1947, Davis purchased a Jeep that “made her pretty hard to stop.”
20 Boxes
When Spangler's father started the route there were 20 boxes, and what is now Wyoming Highway 112 north to Alzada ended eight miles out of Hulett.
The route involved a big circle and included county roads, such as Government Canyon Road and Bentonite Haul Road, that could turn muddy.
Bill Spangler did the route on muddy days and winter months. His wife, Hattie, did it during the summer.
Hattie first obtained her driver’s license when she was 50 years old to help with the route, her daughter said.
Ione Spangler said the family has gone through a lot of four-wheel-drive pickups delivering the mail. When she and her sister moved back to the ranch in the 1980s, they would help out from time to time.
When her father died in 1988, she and her sister, Allie, helped her mother continue the route. Spangler said her father was outgoing and knew all the ranchers along the way.
She now delivers to the second and third generations on those ranches.
Under their contract, the mail is delivered three days a week: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Sixty boxes are now on the route and more on the way as ranches are subdivided.
Blizzard Memory
Spangler recalls some winter challenges. Once, perhaps in 1978, when she and her sister were helping with the route, a blizzard struck.
They had chains on their truck tires and were traveling in four-wheel-drive, but the wind was blowing drifts across the road faster than they could shovel them out. She remembers two men met them on the road and helped them get across the state line into Montana.
One of the men lived near Alzada and the other ran the Valley Inn Cafe in the town.
“We usually ate lunch there and grabbed a cup of coffee or something,” she said. “So, they knew that if we didn’t come in, something might be wrong.”
The women had to drive back to Hulett via Belle Fourche, South Dakota, because the roads were shut down in Wyoming.
Typically, she and her sister would pack a lunch and take a thermos of coffee on the nasty days in case they got stuck.
She recalled another winter’s day when her dad was forced to stay overnight at a ranch. And there were times years ago that the snow banks in some spots were like driving through a tunnel.
When her mother could no longer do the route and then died in 2000, Ione Spangler took over and continued adapting to changes.
A positive change the past few years has been less-severe winters and roads that allow her to navigate the stops with her Compass.
“The roads are so good now, but before you wouldn’t try it without a four-wheel-drive,” she said.
She pays attention to the tires on the car and has a flip phone that might work in an emergency, depending on her location on a route that consists of about 31 miles of paved road and 35 miles of gravel.
Cloth Mail Bags
Since the time her father delivered the mail, the family has used homemade colored cloth mail bags to insert the letters and newspapers.
For each mailbox, there are two colored bags, and when the family or individual receives the mail for the day, they take out the mail from their bag and put the bag back in the box for Spangler to retrieve as she delivers a new one.
These days the mail volume is much lower, but the package numbers are higher.
Sometimes getting all the packages into her car can be a challenge, she said.
A typical day sees Spangler arriving at the post office around 9:30 a.m. to sort the mail for the route. If everything is normal, she’s back by 2:30 p.m. On challenging days it might be 4 p.m.
Changes in the postal system mean letters now arrive presorted from the Casper Post Office. She adds in the magazines, newspapers, and advertisement flyers for each box, loads the car, and heads out.
Because ranches typically are set back from the road and many have dogs that might not be friendly to strangers, she puts packages in a plastic bag by the mailbox or in a package box if the ranch has one set out.
“Most people know when their package is getting delivered just by checking their phone and tracking it,” Spangler said.
As a sheep and cattle rancher, she has worked the postal route around her ranch chores. She said she takes care of the sheep and her sister handles the cattle.
The route has provided extra income, sometimes an adventure, and has generally been a positive experience over the years, she said. But she won’t miss stops at mailboxes along Highway 112 on icy days.
“We enjoyed it. It was kind of nice just to leave the ranch and see other people,” she said. “It was kind of like driving a school bus, it was just something you had to do.”
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
