A Thousand Miners and a Mail Route: Okanogan's Slate Creek Wants a Post Office

Washington City, July 1.—Special. Slate Creek postoffice and mail route matter is again before the postmaster general in the shape of a strong petition from citizens who have worked their way in from the eastern side of the mountains. The petition is signed by nearly 300 citizens who have located in this section, either at what is known as Slate Creek proper, or at the little town of Ventura, which is situated on the Upper Methow river, Okanogan county, and are now very desirous of having a postoffice and a daily mail service established. The route asked for by this last petition would begin at Virginia City on the Columbia river, thence by the way of Silver postoffice, Winthrop postoffice and the new town of Ventura to the Slate Creek mines. The distance from Winthrop to Ventura is about twenty-eight miles, and from Ventura to the Slate Creek mines about eighteen miles. The petitioners urge the postmaster general to note that if their prayer is granted he will be serving about 1,000 people in the Slate Creek mines and about [the same] in the new town of Ventura. William Shufeldt is unanimously indorsed for postmaster at Ventura. F. H. Oliver, who was named in the petitions filed first from the citizens on the western side of the mountains, states that he cannot accept the appointment as postmaster at Slate Creek, but that M. J. Worden, whose present address is Winthrop, Okanogan county, would be highly satisfactory to all the people of that place. An existing difference of opinion as to what name should be given to the new office has now been settled in favor of Slate Creek. There appears to be a necessity for a mail route from both sides of the mountain, and it is probable that in due time both will be established.