AUBURN — Save for the Grange Hall on the next block up Old Danville Road, the tiny Post Office may be the last gathering-place of the neighborhood.

“It’s where we come, the closest thing we have to a watering hole,” said Roderick Dew, of Old Danville Road. “It’s where we come to see our neighbors and catch up on the gossip and just find out what’s going on.”

Neighbors fear losing that. The Danville Post Office, Zip Code 04223, is one of 34 across Maine being evaluated by the U.S. Postal Service for potential closing. Nationwide, the U.S. Postal Service is considering closing 3,700 post offices in an effort to trim their budget and save up to $200 million.

Danville, now part of Auburn, used to be a town in its own right and the Post Office was part of it. Now, the 300-square-foot building with 104 boxes sits at the end of Dunlap Street, down the hill from the abandoned Danville Volunteer Fire Station.

“It’s a shame, because this is really where Auburn started,” Dave Harris of Britney Lane said. “A lot of people don’t understand that.”

The office is operated by Officer-In-Charge Sharon Wheeler, and she does everything a larger post office does except provide passports. That includes filling the postal boxes, selling stamps and mailing supplies and taking packages.

Tom Rizzo, spokesman for the Northern New England District of the U.S. Postal Service, said there’s no guarantee that the Danville office will close.

Residents should get a questionnaire in their boxes in the coming weeks. Their responses will be used to create a study of the local Post Office.

“Part of this decision will be made on the hard data,” Rizzo said. “Some of those rural offices with low foot traffic could benefit by having a village post office, a private community retailer like a grocery or a gas station that would enter into an agreement to sell postal supplies.”

Rizzo said a public meeting would be held in Danville before a decision is made.

“The data doesn’t tell us everything, and so we’re going out and investigating how practical it would be to replace those offices,” he said.

Dew said he doesn’t think it’s very practical.

“We don’t have a general store we could go to,” he said. “This is all we have.”

Glenys Ryder of Old Danville Road said she’d miss having the local office.

“If the weather’s nice, I can walk down,” she said. The community is buzzing with rumors of what could happen, she said. Some have told her she’d have to drive to the New Gloucester Post Office 2.3 miles away. Others have said she’d have to go 5 miles into town to Auburn’s Rodman Road Post Office to get her mail.

City Councilor David Young said he’d heard some residents would get home delivery if the Dunlap Street office closes.

Those are just rumors, Rizzo said.

“We don’t act unilaterally,” Rizzo said. “We have a lot of steps to go through before we do anything dramatic. It needs to be considered very carefully.”

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