UPDATE: Postal Service spokesman Ernie Swanson left a message on my voicemail today confirming what Loveless said. Steilacoom's four mail carriers are moving to Lakewood, but post office boxes and the retail window are staying.

We received an e-mail last week from a Steilacoom resident who said she spoke with her mail carrier. The e-mailer learned that the carrier would now be working out of Lakewood, and she thought that Washington's oldest town would lose its only U.S. Postal Service branch as well.

I haven't been able to touch base with the postal service, however Steilacoom Town Administrator Paul Loveless said the Post Office isn't leaving.

Loveless said he spoke with Tacoma Postmaster Robert Galtrude, who assured him the Post Office's retail presence on Lafayette Street will not change.

The only change is carriers will no longer work out of the Steilacoom branch. They'll be based out of Lakewood. The move is a cost-savings measure for the Postal Service, which may face a deficit of more than $6 billion this year.

Residents won't notice a change in service, Loveless said.

University Place won't demolish the aging but historic house at the Curran Apple Orchard after all.

Instead, a volunteer group of history and architecture enthusiasts will work to raise money to convert the 1950s-era building into a museum.

After almost a year of discussions, the University Place City Council voted last week not to demolish the house, which was designed by award-winning Tacoma architect Robert B. Price.

(To the right is a News Tribune photo of the house taken last year by Chris Anderson.)

Now, the Curran House Investigating and Planning Study group - CHIPS for short - will determine the cost of making the house museum-ready. They say it will be tens of thousands of dollars less than the $125,000 estimate from city staff last year.

=> Read more!