Of all the storylines we can follow from settlement through to the present day, there’s nothing quite like the mail trail.

The mail service was the civilising influence that kept people on the land connected with the world around them through letters and newspapers. It was often the first government service to arrive in a region and the one most sorely missed when events like floods cut off the mailman from his appointed rounds.

Eulo’s first step towards becoming a town occurred in September 1872 when a post office was established here. With its reliable water supply, this place was a crucial waystation on the arduous weekly mail run between Cunnamulla and Tharmogindah.

Then in 1881 the telegraph service arrived in town. The building we see here today was built to provide a base for both the new telegraph operators as well as the local postmaster.

Eulo’s pivotal role in the main east-west post and telegraph system at that time features in an 1892 map. By this time Eulo was also serving as a mail hub in its own right with mail runs in place to the north up both the Paroo River and Yowah Creek.

By the 1920s when this photo of the post office was taken, trucks had replaced carts and coaches on the mail run. A telephone exchange was also installed here in this building. After 60 years of operators manually plugging in the phone lines, the exchange was finally automated in 1982. This led to the closure of the post office with the general store taking over as a postal agency.

THE PERILS OF THE POSTAL RUN

The hazards of taking on the postal run across the barren expanse between Eulo and Tharmogindah was a headline subject in a 1924 article on Eulo.

It emphasised the important role that motor lorries were playing in opening up the outback and making the challenge of moving around the region much safer.

Sadly there were still risks involved with taking on the mail run. These were portrayed in account of a fatal accident involving the mail truck in 1948.