By Patricia JonesThe Grand Lake Post Office was the very first building in Dobby’s Frontier Town. Dobby Lee created it for the Alliance Centennial Celebration in 1988. It sat in the mini park at 3rd and Box Butte for several months.<figure>
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 </figure>Dobby used an old milk house and furnished it with antiques he had bought at auctions. The mailboxes were from the Gandy, Nebraska post office, built in 1884. The counter and iron work were originally in the Box Butte County Treasurer’s Office. Look around and notice the voting box, the cribbage board table and chairs, the Pony Express items, the Wanted posters and the 1938 Plat map of Box Butte County on the wall. The uniform was donated by Tom Dill who carried mail in Alliance for many years.The fence posts in front of the building are hand hewn from the sandstone deposits in the Flint Hills area of Kansas. You can still see these kinds of posts used in several areas of the Midwest today.Grand Lake was the original name of Alliance (before 1888). The town, basically just a railroad siding, was a little east, by the Highway 2 overpass. Probably the town was named for Bronco Lake, a spring-fed lake about three miles west of Alliance, near Westside Events Center. Bronco Lake dried up when irrigation became popular.Originally, all this area’s mail was left in a box at the bottom of a hill thirteen miles northeast of Alliance. Settlers went to “Box Butte” on a regular basis to retrieve letters and parcels, and delivered things to their neighbors. This later became the name for our county.After the railroad came through, the town was renamed and mail was brought to Alliance every day. People came to the city post office for their mail whenever they came to town for supplies.The Grand Lake Post Office is found in the part of Dobby’s Frontier Town that lies directly north of the main house. Be sure to step inside for a look around next time you visit! Please remember that Dobby’s relies on volunteers and donations to keep operating.

Dobby's History: Grand Lake Post Office