MINTURN — Minturn has had a long list of postmasters since 1889 — 15 years before it became a town — but no one has held the job longer than Jim Madril.
Madril, a valley native, retired last week after more than 40 years with the U.S. Postal Service. Since 1980, he has been Minturn’s postmaster. He started with the post office because he saw an opportunity for a career with good pay and benefits and stayed because he loved the work and the people.
Like most small-town postmasters, Madril knows pretty much everyone and where they live. In fact, a notice went out recently to box-holders that as of June 1, they can’t expect items sent to their street addresses to end up in their boxes the way they often do now.
Knowing where just about everyone lives isn’t in the official small-town-postmaster job description. Learning just about everything about a community’s life just sort of goes with the territory.
