Gundagai Post Office and Mounted Postie

Certainly for me the post office is one of the nicest buildings in Gundagai. It is a fairly simple red brick building built in 1879. I especially like the ‘swirl’ on the balcony which has an early art deco look, so either it was ahead of its time or it was a later addition to the original building.

More interesting than the building itself is that Gundagai Post Office was the base of Australia’s last mounted postie (postman).

Mail from Gundagai Post Office was delivered on horse back for 81 years and for 35 of those years, from 1950 to 1985, Bruce Dennis (depicted below) delivered his mail six days a week by horse come hail, rain or shine.

In addition to delivering the mail, Bruce was responsible for the care of his horse though it’s said that many the Christmas the horse looked after Bruce and brought him home safely when he over indulged in the Christmas spirit on his postal run.

When Bruce and Frosty, his horse for seventeen years, retired on 1 July 1985 it also marked the end of Australia Post’s delivery of mail by horse back.

Embedded below are links to couple of old videos of Bruce and his horse.

I especially like this one from 1969. At that time Bruce’s Horse was called Lollie.

In this second one Bruce’s then horse, Frosty, was, in fact, replaced with a motorbike.

Videos and and the black and white photo above are courtesy of Lost Gundagai (Facebook).

Post Office Address: 104 Sheridan St

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