MUSCATINE, Iowa — The new City Hall in Fruitland stands nearly ready for the city and postal services it’s tornado-ravaged predecessor once housed, but city officials are still waiting to hear whether the U.S. Postal Service will reopen the local branch.

Fruitland City Clerk John

Mc Cormick said postal officials “won’t commit themselves” to resuming window service in Fruitland.

Laurie Cross, manager of post office operations, at the district office in Milan, Ill., could not be reached for comment Friday.

Mc Cormick said the Postal Service requested that city officials call a meeting at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 25, to discuss the future of Fruitland’s postal services. The meeting will be held at Island Methodist Church, 2598 Stewart Road, Muscatine.

Mc Cormick said people with a Fruitland address, and anyone who used the former post office should plan to attend.

“What we’re looking for are some answers of whether or not we’re going to get the post office back in Fruitland,” Mc Cormick said. “It was destroyed by the tornado.”

The June 1 storm devastated Fruitland, also striking parts of Grandview and Muscatine.

Before the tornado, city officials were in the process of building a new city hall. But the post office was going to remain in the old building.

Following the storm,

Mc Cormick said, “We immediately added a 30-foot extension on there so there would be room for [the post office] to re-establish.”

City officials can move out of a trailer that has served as City Hall since the storm and into the new building as early as in a couple of weeks, Mc Cormick said. He said city and postal officials have been in contact throughout the construction, but it is still unclear whether the post office will reopen.

The former location featured indoor post office boxes and window service, he said. Home delivery has been unaffected as mail has been rerouted through Muscatine, but a new post office box location is outdoors,

Mc Cormick said.

Fruitland had about 700 people living there according the the last census, Mc Cormick said, but he feels the population had reached about 1,000 before the tornado. He said there are about 330 households.

Fruitland may have had the post office for more than 100 years, “before it was a community,” Mc Cormick said.

Reporter contact information

Jennifer Meyer: 563-262-0525

jennifer.meyer@muscatinejournal.com