The old post office that stood in the area of Guinea Road and Zion Drive is being relocated to the grounds of the Silas Burke House. Photo by Tim Peterson.
The old Burke Post Office will be joining fellow historic landmark the Silas Burke House on the top of the hill on Burke Lake Road. The first phase of the move took place Saturday morning, April 23, when the old structure was mounted on a flatbed truck and relocated to a site across from the Burke Centre Library for temporary storage.
The Burke Junction area of Guinea Road and Zion Drive, including where the post office once stood, is planned for a new development of 17 single-family homes.
Suzanne “Suzi” Fowler Neal grew up in the Silas Burke House -- she said her great aunt Rena Carter was once postmaster at the old office. Rena’s sister Nell Rice Simpson was Fowler Neal’s grandmother.
“It’s strange, but in my mind,” Fowler Neal said in an email, “the ‘Little Post Office’ being moved to the ‘Top o’ the Hill’ (aka Silas Burke house) is like getting the two sisters back together again and I love that thought.”
Fowler Neal said her mother Ginny Fowler used to work two hours a day at the post office while she was growing up, earning 37.5 cents per hour.