History
It
was in 1850 that Father Sorin made his first attempt to
secure a postal station for Notre Dame. The effort failed.
It was asserted that Notre Dame was so close to South Bend
as to make a post office at Notre Dame unnecessary.
New requests were made to no less a personage than Henry Clay. Thanks to his support, and to that of Congressman Fitzgerald of Niles, the request was granted on January 6, 1851. Father Sorin was made postmaster, a position which he held until his death. After the establishment of the post office at Notre Dame, the four horse mail coaches stopped at Notre Dame three times a week en route from Logansport to Niles.
The post office at Notre Dame was a great convenience for the college...Father Sorin wrote: "The regular passage of the mail coach under the college windows makes the college better known, and causes the public highways leading to it to be carefully maintained."
--excerpt from "Notre Dame -- One Hundred Years," by Arthur J. Hope, C.S.C.