Redmond beginnings: Melrose Post Office name changed to Redmond on March 19, 1883.

  • By Greg Lange
  • Posted 12/07/1998
  • HistoryLink.org Essay 452
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Redmond Post Office, called Melrose when it opened on June 28, 1881, changes to Redmond on March 19, 1883. Luke M. McRedmond is the postmaster at the time of the name change. Redmond is located in King County on the eastside of Lake Washington, four miles east of Kirkland.

Luke M. McRedmond (1820-1898) was appointed postmaster of Melrose on December 11, 1882. He persuaded the U. S. Post Office to change the name to Redmond three months later. The post office was located in the Redmond Trading Company, a general store. The Seattle, Lakeshore & Eastern Railroad arrived in 1885. Before that the mail was delivered on the wagon road around the north of Lake Washington. Logging and milling were the main industries of Redmond.


Sources:

Guy Reed Ramsey, "Postmarked Washington, 1850-1960," Microfilm (Olympia: Washington State Library, February, 1966), 579-582.


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