Am doing some research on small US towns and their post offices. In the process it’s not unusual to see post office names of the format:
Marmarth Rur. Sta. (1974-Date) (in Slope County ND)
Which follows chronologically from Marmarth (1908-1974)
So I’m presuming Marmath, ND had a post office until 1974 and then it was down sized. A sub-post office, staffed part-time or summat.
But can somebody help me with what does the abbreviation “Rur. Sta.” stand for? My googlefu is failing me.
My guess would be “rural station” but that may not work in the US venacular.
Surely you are correct – “rural station.”
I was curious about this myself, so I did a little googling, and found this pretty interesting official historical overview.
PDF:
It lays out the evolution of rural services, including some definitions of how the various terms were used over the decades. Interesting stuff.
The show that replaced the Andy Griffith show, Mayberry R.F.D. was name to indicate how rural it was. RFD being a common term for Rural Free Delivery at the time, i.e. the sticks.
Anecdotally, in the UK, I shipped a Raspberry Pi from Bath to a guy in Scotland. I looked it up on Google Maps, and it was in the west and to the left of nowhere.
24-hour overnight, guaranteed 1 PM delivery. Not very expensive; shipped at 2 PM, and he told me he had it in hand the next day at 10 AM. Trains, Planes and automobiles, if I could have found the place, I could not have beaten that.