First underground Post Office of the world

 

Date of Issue : 22 March 2013

Slovenia Post issued a souvenir sheet on 22 March  2013 featuring world’s first underground Post Office  of the world.

The first underground Post Office

Postojna Cave is the most famous cave in Europe, welcoming half a million visitors each year. In its 200-year tradition of tourism, the cave’s beautiful dripstone formations have been admired by 35 million people, including 150 monarchs. The cave extends for 21 kilometres. Tours of the cave have been possible for 141 years via the cave railway. It is a cradle of bio speleology, and an area with the greatest diversity of cave fauna in the world, since in addition to the proteus or “human fish”, it is home to the first cave beetle, Leptodirus hochenwartii, and 100 other species of cave fauna. Prior to the appearance of postcards, the cave had already
enjoyed a long tradition of tourism.

The number of postcards sent from Postojna grew markedly at Whitsuntide and the Feast of the Assumption, when mass events and dances were held. For this reason the cave management sent a request to the Austrian trade ministry in Vienna for the opening of a post office in the cave.

Postojna Cave – Underground Post Office

Date of Issue : 22 March 2013

On 15 August 1899, next to the Dance Hall, 500 metres from the entrance to the cave, the first underground post office in the world was opened. It used the postmark “ADELSBERGER GROTTE – POSTOJNSKA JAMA”. At first the post office was open only on special occasions, but after 1911 it operated regularly, with a record 75,000 postcards being sent at that time on Whitsun Monday, and thereafter 6,000 to 11,000 were posted each day. Even during the First World War, when Postojna hosted the General Staff of the Austro-Hungarian forces for the Soča (Isonzo) Front, the underground post office stayed open, and continued to operate between 1922 and 1927, after the annexation of Postojna to the Kingdom of Italy. At that time the post office used the postmark “POSTUMIA (GROTTE)”. In May 1927 a second underground post office was constructed in the Concert Hall, 1400 metres from the cave entrance, and this operated up until 1945.