The Bundanoon Post Office has been located in four different buildings. Built around 1917, this was Bundanoon’s third post office. It met the postal authorities specifications for a post office, telegraph office, and postmaster’s residence. The first post office had opened in 1889 on the corner of Erith Street and Ellsmore Road, and the second in 1905 on the corner of Anzac Parade and Church Street.
The building’s architecture (brickwork, veranda woodwork), is similar to that of ‘Altona’ next door, and is believed to have been built for the Calverleys by the same builder, Mr. Walker of Kareela.
Mr. Mobbs, who served in Bundanoon until about 1928, was the first postmaster to live here.
The “Hello girls”
A manual telephone exchange was opened at the rear of the building in 1918 and was an important source of employment for generations of Bundanoon girls – fondly remembered as ‘the Hello girls’.
Since the first telephone directory for Bundanoon contained only nine subscribers, everyone else wanting to make a call had to walk up the driveway at the side and ask the operator, through a window, to dial the number of the person they wished to speak to. The caller then waited in the telephone box outside for their call to be put through. The Morse Code tapping of telegrams coming in or going out was quite noisy and made it hard for the operator to hear callers.
Due to the increase in telephone numbers, the exchange later moved upstairs to the front room of the building.
Letters, telegrams and stamps
In the 1920s there were no postal deliveries and everyone collected their letters from the post office. Inside there was a counter and a table at the side where Miss Lillian Tobin sat. She served as telegram/Morse code operator for about 40 years.
Archival photographs show that the location of the telephone box outside for receiving calls seems to have changed frequently. There was also a stamp machine set into the wall, which is now part of the Bundanoon History Group archive collection.
In 1958 a new Post Office building opened in Church Street and this building, then owned by Lillian Calverley, probably became a private residence.
