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The First Post Office John Skretting, who homesteaded about
the years 1887 or 1888, saw the need of having communication with
the outside world if the settlers were to prosper and not live in
isolation an obscurity. He got a petition going and got it signed
to extend a mail route from Aitkin down to the settlement. The settlers
had, mostly by their own effort, cut a road from the north end of
Mille Lacs to Isle Harbor (now Isle) so it connected with the road
from Aitkin to the lake. The Post Office Department promised to
comply with the request providing the applicant would agree to haul
the mail for nothing for six months. As he was the only man in the
settlement who had a team of horses, he undertook the job. The road
in from Mora to the south end of Mille Lacs was ravelled and kept
open in the wintertime, so he was allowed to take the mail in from
that place, although the petition called for an extension of a mail
route already running south from Aitkin. The spring after, 1892,
the mail route was opened up in from Aitkin twice a week. Skretting's
place, half a mile south of the present Opstead Store, was the termination.
The Post Office was named Opstead after Skretting's home in Norway,
Opstead near the city of Stavanger. The stage driver, a Mr. Woodrow
from Aitkin, charged fifty cents per hundred for taking freight
to or from Aitkin, and one dollar for a passenger. Most people walked
to Aitkin to save the dollar, besides the jolting over the rough
road was terrible, and walking was just as fast. To walk over to
Opstead evenings to wait for the stage and get the mail, was for
years a kind of social gathering, and the old people will still
remember the often hot discussions over local as well as world affairs.
After the mail was distributed the lanterns were lit, and we found
our way over the wood trails to our homes. Written by Compiled by
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