Snail mail is not dead. Not between Portland and Butte Falls, Ore., anyway.
A postcard mailed from Portland on Feb. 20, 1940, was delivered April 14 to the great-grandson of the intended recipient.
And ironically, he's a director at the Rogue Valley Genealogical Society. Someone with expertise in making connections with the past received a message that had been lost in time.
Butte Falls today is a town of 429 people, located 32 miles northeast of Medford. It's 293 miles from Portland.
The postcard message was short: "Arrived in Portland at 8 o'clock. Having a fine time. Be home sometime Sat.–Blanche."
No one knows who Blanche was. The front of the postcard shows an image of a 1906 warship.
The story has some twists and turns – for example, the great-grandson doesn't even live in Butte Falls. He lives in the Medford suburb of Phoenix, Ore. Learn how the connection was made in this Medford Mail Tribune article.
