A view of Main Street, looking east, Loyalton, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, taken about 2000. The property on the right in the picture was purchased by Jonathan S. Zerbe in 1922. He sold it to Melva Sitlinger, Postmaster of Loyalton, in 1940. At the time she purchased the home, the post office was located in the same block in the Snyder General Store, later Bechtel’s General Store, on the southeast corner of the Crossroads and Main Street. The house was built about 1940 for her and Melva lived there with her daughter Lucy [Sitlinger] Troutman and son-in-law Paul “Silas” Troutman, who raised their two children in an apartment in this house.
Melva M. Sitlinger was appointed Postmaster of Loyalton on 26 February 1940. She replaced Harvey A. Snyder, who was postmaster from 1914 nearly up until Melva’s appointment. In the last years that Melva Sitlinger was postmaster, she had the post office in her house, and for a time, there was also a craft store located here. The rural mail for Specktown, Lykens Township, was dispatched from this office. When Melva retired on 30 December 1963, her daughter Lucy took over the post office duties, but as a clerk to the Lykens Borough post office which then began handling the rural mail delivery (“R. D.”) for the Specktown area. Today, the Lykens Post Office handles the rural home delivery for a good portion of Lykens Township including the Borough of Gratz, all under one zip code, that of Lykens.
Immanuel United Methodist Church can be seen at the left. It was formerly the Immanuel United Brethren Church.
__________________________________
Corrections and additional information should be added as comments to this post.