General store and Post Office at Walpack Center in Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area
The first general store at Walpack Center in New Jersey was opened in 1850 by Isaac and Jasper Rundle. The store became the commercial center for Walpack Township, and around it sprang up a church and a few private residences. At the time there was no direct household delivery of mail in rural areas, so residents had to travel to a post office to get their mail. Since the general store was also a common destination, post offices were often housed in the same building. Such was the case at the Walpack General Store starting in 1854. Jasper Rundle was the town’s first postmaster.
The original 1850 building stood until catching fire and burning to the ground in 1915. A new store was built and opened for business within a month, and it is this building that stands today. The store remained open until the early 1970s when most everyone was forced out of the area by the federal government to make way for a lake that was to be created by the Tocks Island Dam (the project was cancelled in 1975). The post office, however, continued to serve customers who remained in Walpack Township until 1988.
The post office appears today just as it was when it closed. There are a few furniture and fixture items inside along with FBI Wanted posters from mid-1980s hanging on the wall. One is for Mary Kathleen Brooks, a woman connected to the Weather Underground who was wanted for 17 years for two bank bombings in Berkeley, California, during the height of the Vietnam War protests. She ended up turning herself in in September 1988. The posters also include another woman wanted by the FBI at the time, Donna Jean Willmott, who was the seventh woman to land on the FBI’s Most Wanted List. She wasn’t caught until 1994. Only eleven women have ever made the list. One of the men on the posters, Glen Stewart Godwin, is still wanted to this day, and for a time, was on the Most Wanted List. The poster is from 1987.
Today the Walpack General Store and Post Office is maintained by the Walpack Historical Society, but it is not open to the public on any regular basis.
Inside the General Store and Post Office at Walpack Center in Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area
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Last updated on February 5, 2024
