Hello.
Please find the attached letter to the editor. Kathy
Rafter of Missoula did a little historical on Moccasin and buildings a
couple of years ago for her periodical. There is a very poor website,
but with good pictures, at Moccasin.Montana.com.
The school, the
bar, the store, the gas station, and yes, now the post office have
outlived useful lives in not only Moccasin but many small towns and
villages. The USPS has chosen to compete by selling paraphenalia,
shipping supplies, and trying to develop revenue streams which are
extraneous to the delivery of mail. We approached them 15 years ago
about putting an internet kiosk in each post office; and at levels high
and low we were rebuffed. Their corporate philosophy was that they
would not embrace a technology with which they might have to compete.
We believed that they could establish a new revenue stream and use a
loyalty card to maintain traffic flow and their centers for
communication. After a few years UPS stores, Kinkos, and others did
just that.
Our chains of internet cafes, Soapy's Stations and
Seaport Cyber, were very profitable from 1996 until just a couple years
ago. We closed our last store this October as laptops, smart phones,
and wireless technology has replaced our model.
My job in the
next few days is to put a solar panel on the lights at the old pump so
that Moccasin will NEVER lose its last light.
Joe Ashcraft
Ketchikan Alaska and Moalbal, Central Visayas, Phils writing from Moccasin