Old Post Offices and Communities

The following list of towns, villages and place names have been compiled by Betty Wynn Sumara and Abigail Rice Hyde. Sources include County records, County Court minutes , school board records, United States Postal records and personal knowledge.The list will undoubtedly be incomplete, although we have made a concerted effort to present as accurately as possible a document that will be useful to future generations.

In an effort to avoid repetition, we have used “Lake County” throughout this work even if the event referred to took place prior to 1870 when Lake County was formed from the portion of Obion County lying West of Reelfoot Lake.

The districts are numbered as originally laid out in the organization of Lake County.

One note to keep in mind, the postmaster of a village was not a secure position in the early days. The job changed as the political party in power changed. A Democratic President of the United States had the power to appoint a new postmaster if he so desired and he usually did appoint one of his supporters. When a Republican President was elected, all the Democratic appointees were almost always replaced by a Republican supporter.

Most post offices were in a corner of a business house in each town or village. When a new postmaster was appointed the post office would be moved to a location designated by the new postmaster. When this occurred, it was not unusual for the village post office name to be changed. ie. See the village of Madie. There were some cases where a village was known by a name for many years and upon applying for a postal permit, there would already be a post office by that name in Tennessee, therefore the village name was necessarily changed as in the case of the village of Mooring.

LIST OF VILLAGES