Atchison also is a fine retail center, and draws trade from the surrounding territory for a distance of from fifty to seventy-five miles. It has fine dry goods stores, which carry the latest merchandise; good shoe stores, millinery shops, grocery and hardware stores and shops of all kinds, all of which are run by enterprising merchants. Atchison is a good town in which to live; a city of beautiful homes; fine paved and well lighted streets; a good water system and adequate street car service, and a fine, prosperous set of people. The future of Atchison, as a commercial center, is particularly bright, and it may look back with a justifiable pride to what has already been accomplished, and forward to a better day that is yet to come. CHAPTER XXI. PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND INSTITUTIONS. ATCHISON POSTOFFICE—COURT HOUSE—COUNTY HOSPITAL—YOUNG MEN’S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION—STATE ORPHANS’ HOME—ATCHISON PUBLIC LIBRARY—ATCHISON HOSPITAL—MASONIC TEMPLE. The first postoffice in Atchison opened in a small, one-story, stone building, on the south side of Commercial street, between Second and Third. The room was about 20×26 feet in dimensions, but large enough for the purpose for which it was intended at that time. The location of the postoffice was removed in 1856 to the store of Messrs. Woolfolk & Cabell, on the levee. During the war in Kansas, in August, the headquarters of the United States mail service were removed to the law office of P. P. Wilcox. From there the office was removed to a building on the north side of Commercial street, between Third and Fourth, and it was there that in July, 1882, the free delivery system was inaugurated in Atchison, which, with her money order department fully equipped the postoffice. A number of years later agitation was started for the erection of a new postoffice, and through the efforts of Senator Ingalls a site at the northeast corner of Seventh and Kansas avenue was purchased from Dr. Cochrane by the Government, and the contract was awarded for the erection of the postoffice June 24, 1892, at a cost of $61,703.17. The names and terms of the postmasters of Atchison since the founding of the office are as follows: Robert S. Kelly, March 15, 1855; John H. Blasingham, December 20, 1855; Henry Addoms, July 28, 1857; John A. Martin, April 26, 1861; Benjamin B. Gale, March 5, 1874; John M. Price, February 6, 1879; Melleville C. Winegar, March 10, 1882; H. Clay Park, March 30, 1886; Solomon R. Washer, March 20, 1890; Edgar C. Post, June 7, 1894; James M. Chisham, June 3, 1898; William D. Casey, December 14, 1910; Louis C. Orr, December 29, 1914, who is postmaster in 1916. COURT HOUSE.