The Delhi Center post office was established on February 3, 1848, about six years after Delhi Township was established in 1842. The first postmaster was George Phillips, who likely may have handled mail at his log cabin just west of Delhi Center. In these early nineteenth century days, residents had to visit their postmaster or post office, often located in general stores, to receive their mail. Delhi Center became Holt on December 7, 1860, to avoid postal confusion with Delhi Mills in Washtenaw County. Locals didn’t make that change until after the turn of the twentieth century.

It became a practice in the late nineteenth century for postmasters to be general store proprietors. That was true in Holt. One notable general store owner / postmaster was Samuel W. Mayer, who served three stints as Holt postmaster, 1889-1893, 1897-1904, and 1907-1915. During those earliest years of his appointment, he owned and operated a general store at the southwest corner of Holt Road and Cedar Street. In 1896, the United States Postal Service launched a trial Rural Free Delivery (RFD) system, and in 1902 it became a permanent service.

Samuel W. Mayer and the S.W. Mayer General Merchandise store.

Holt’s post office was in a building at the southeast corner of Holt Road and Cedar Street in the early 20th century, pre-1915. That building doubled as an interurban station and ticket and freight office, with advertisements to get off the interurban at the Holt P.O. The post office moved to each general store as new postmasters were appointed, when Herbert E. Gunn became postmaster in 1915, it moved into his store across the street. By 1930, the post office moved into its longtime quarters in the small two-story building near the northwest corner of Holt Road and Cedar Street, where it remained for 26 years until 1956.

As Holt’s population grew in the post-WWII years, so too did the need for more space in the post office. From 1950 to 1955, the Holt Post Office circulation doubled, raising from a third to second class post office and increasing the space constraints. Postmaster Andrew Farnsworth oversaw the construction of and transition to a new larger post office. The new Holt Post Office was built in 1956 and opened the same year on West Delhi. This was an addition to an existing building, built in 1945. Both the 1945 and 1956 buildings still stand on West Holt Road, between Cedar Street and Chestnut Street.

The 1956 building served the Holt community as its post office for 30 years until it, too, reached space constraints. A new site was selected on Aurelius Road and the current Holt Post Office was completed in 1986 by Moore-Trosper Construction. The current post office is double the size of the former building.