Excerpts from the postal history
The municipality of Harxheim acquired a rural mailbox as early as 1861, which was ordered daily by the letter carrier from Bodenheim. From 1904 to 1996 there was also a post office in Harxheim, which was first located in the Obergasse and from 1987 in the Untergasse. Since then, there is a postal agency, which currently belongs to the Multishop.
The beginning of modern postal service in Central Europe is considered to be a system in which the message, rather than the messenger, is the focus. Various state posts, as well as the Imperial Mail, became important means of transportation for trade by the beginning of the 18th century. Already since the beginning of the 16th century, private letters were transported, which were then taken to one of the few postal stations and had to be picked up there.
The French occupied the “German” territory up to the Rhine in 1797 and divided it into four departments in 1798. Today’s Rheinhessen fell within the Département Donnersberg (Département du Mont Tonnère), which was divided into four sub-prefectures (arrondissements). The sub-prefecture of Mainz consisted of eleven cantons. Harxheim belonged with Gau-Bischofsheim to the canton Nieder-Olm. Between the administration in Mainz and the cantons, the exchange of official mail was strictly regulated. A canton messenger walked the mayoralties in each canton – in the decade (ten days) three times each (with seven working days per week). Carrying private letters for a small tip was allowed to the messengers. The most favorable concessionary contractor was awarded the contract for the transportation of goods and passengers.
As early as 1807, the Grand Duchy of Hesse had transferred the post office to Prince von Thurn und Taxis as a hereditary fief. Even after the reconquest of the territories on the left bank of the Rhine by the Allied troops, the House of Thurn und Taxis was entrusted with the transportation of mail, albeit provisionally at first. In our region, the system of cantonal messengers was maintained. Mayoral walk-throughs now took place twice a week (with five working days per week). From January 1, 1825, the cantonal messengers were then called district messengers. They subsequently took over the function of rural letter carriers. Unfortunately, the number and type of errands in the 1840s from Mainz, Nieder-Olm and Oppenheim are not known.
A provisional postal expedition (today: postal agency) was first established in Bodenheim on October 1, 1849. The following towns were assigned to an ordering district to be walked for the first time every working day: Lörzweiler and Nackenheim (assigned to Oppenheim) and Gau-Bischofsheim and Harxheim (assigned to Nieder-Olm). From May 1861 until the 1990s, the organization of the postal system was based on the local post offices, each of which provided postal services to its immediate surroundings. Now the rural post office took over the tasks of the state district messenger system. In 1865, almost all the towns in Rheinhessen concluded a contract for the handling of all official mail in return for a flat fee. The feudal post in the Grand Duchy of Hesse ended with the purchase of the Thurn und Taxis Post by Prussia in 1867.
The German Reichspost took over postal services in the country from 1871. In the 1880s, Gau-Bischofsheim, Harxheim and Lörzweiler received postal aid stations. Postal services were guaranteed by the post offices in Nackenheim and Bodenheim. After the opening of the Bodenheim-Alzey branch line in 1896, the residents of the three towns mentioned above were able to post their mail directly at the trains several times a day. The municipality of Harxheim had already acquired a rural mailbox in 1861, and the daily mail order was carried out by the rural letter carrier from Bodenheim. By 1900, larger towns were already connected by telegraph lines. In 1901, a telegraph (auxiliary) station was established in Harxheim.
The establishment of a Harxheim postal agency took place in 1904. The first post office, from 1904-1922, was located at Obergasse 7. The subsequent post office was then located at Obergasse 23 from the 1920s until 1987. Christian Bach was a post office help from 1926, then a post office owner from 1936.
Post office owner Christian Bach (left) and an unknown person in front of the former post office.
Image: Ernst-Ludwig Happel
Signage of the post office Obergasse 23: “Public telephone station” and “Post office help”.
Image: Ernst-Ludwig Happel
The so-called postholder I in 1946 was Katharina Bach. Starting in 1956, the Mainz post office switched mail exchanges from rail to road (Kraftpost). Now the post office was directly approached in the morning and afternoon. Katharina Bach’s daughter, Lieselotte Ahr, was postmistress I in Harxheim until 1986. The post office was located at Untergasse 19 from 1987 to 1996, after which the Harxheim post office was closed. The postal agency (with banking service) was then located in the local copy store (In den Rohrwiesen) and has been located in the MultiShop (In den Dörrwiesen 10) since 2012.
References:
Hinkel, Manfred (2016): Die Post in der Verbandsgemeinde Bodenheim. Offprint of the Association for Postal History in Rheinhessen e.V.
Marschall, Bernd (2016): From Mummenheim to Mommenheim. 1,250 years of local history. Mainz.
