If you’ve gone looking for a blue United States Postal Service mailbox in Fremont in the last year or two, you may have noticed some changes. Collection boxes have disappeared from familiar spots, including near Tacoma Screw and Markettime. Others have been replaced with newer, high-security models designed to resist mail theft.
The changes are part of Project Safe Delivery, a nationwide USPS initiative launched in 2023 to combat rising mail theft and protect letter carriers.
For Fremonsters who still rely on blue boxes for outgoing mail, here’s where to find them now.
- Northwest: look for one next to Lighthouse Roasters at Phinney Avenue N and N 43rd Street
- Northeast: a box sits across from Balandra on Stone Way N and N 38th Street
- Southwest: there’s a box on Phinney Avenue N near N 36th Street, between the old State Farm office and LTD
- Southeast: None in Fremont are listed on the USPS map, the closest appears to be at Mariner’s Square across from Gas Works Park (1900 N Northlake Way)
This isn’t the first time Fremont’s mail infrastructure has shifted. The neighborhood’s first post office opened in 1890, run out of a home near the Fremont Bridge. Postal services later moved to the Hotel Dixon at 3400 Fremont Ave., where neighbors stopped by the front desk to pick up letters. For more on Fremont’s postal history, check out this piece from Fremont historian, Valarie Bunn.
One response to “Fremont’s mail: Then and now”
Is the mail collection box at Stoneway Ave N and N 36th Street by the bank leaving? It sure seems like Fremont has fewer mail collection boxes per square mile than other neighborhoods. We lost the one in downtown Fremont (N 35th Street and Fremont Avenue North). The placement of the newer, more theft resistant roller slot, mail collection boxes seems to be for USPS convenience and not based on density, trip reduction or public input. Other governmental agencies have to post when they remove a stop or close a facility; that doesn’t seem to be the case with the USPS.