Leper Colony Post Office

For much of history, leprosy, known today as Hansen’s disease, has carried the stigma of beingly highly contagious and incurable. Unfortunately, postal authorities in the past were not immune to the ignorance surrounding the disease, nearly cutting off an entire colony of valuable mail and news in the early 1900s.

The Leper Colony of Kalaupapa

As early as the Middle Ages, fear of leprosy led many world governments to establish colonies that would isolate those infected from the general population. The kingdom of Hawaii established such a colony in the 1860s, first at Kalawao, then moving to Kalaupapa on Molokai Island.

Being entirely cut off from the world, residents looked to their post office as a vital means of news and contact with their loved ones. In the early 1900s, Postal Inspector A.J. Knight, in fear of spreading the infection to postal employees and the outside world, made a drastic decision. In a report to the entire island of Molokai, Inspector Knight recommended that the post office in Kalaupapa be abolished.

The Leper Colony of Kalaupapa

Fears of those within the colony rose, as they worried if their communications with the rest of the world would be abolished with the post office. Upon Inspector A.J. Knight's retirement, he was replaced with Inspector Thomas J. Flavin, unlike Knight, understood the importance of the post office to the people in the colony. He began a thorough investigation of the post office, its employees, and the people of the colony.

He quickly determined that closing the post office was unnecessary and would be detrimental to the people living in the colony and their loved ones outside of the colony. He stated to the Honolulu Advertiser in 1915, "to be cut off from the outer world entirely, there is no reason to fear the health of those on the other islands. All mail from Kalaupapa is disinfected before it leaves Molokai and again when it reaches Honolulu."

The Leper Colony of Kalaupapa

He went on to say that " if postal service were cut off entirely, letters would be smuggled out of the settlement somehow, beyond question, and non of them would be disinfected. To maintain the present system is both kinder and safer." After the end of mandatory isolation in 1969, several residents decided to remain at Kalaupapa, as it was effectively the only home they had ever known.

The post office continues to serve the remaining members of the former leper colony and the National Park Service employees who maintain the site.

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