Just some corrections and additions to my last post here.
First, Fire Island should be Fisher's Island, zip 06390.
Second, the Portland zip serving Damascus is only 97236. 97266 does not serve any part of Damascus, Oregon, although it does serve part of Happy Valley, Oregon, as does Boring (97009) and Clackamas (97015). And of course, Happy Valley does not have its own post office.
Third, more caveats.
Part of a series of zip codes (all beginning with 201) originally assigned to U.S. Government entities in Washington, DC, was discontinued and those zips have been reassigned to post offices in Northern Virginia. If you use these zip codes for the original government offices, your mail will be sent to Virginia first, then returned to you as undeliverable. So, some mail with 201xx zips goes to government offices in Washington, DC, while the rest goes to Northern Virginia civilian addresses. Very odd, and the only split series I know of in the U.S.
The U.S. post office is constantly adding & discontinuing zips as their delivery requirements change. As a result, some zips have never been assigned to post offices, some have been assigned to only one post office, and others have been assigned & reassigned to one or more post offices. And some have been assigned, then eventually discontinued, and now awaiting to be reassigned to a different post office.
In this process, new post offices are added, others closed, and many combined with other offices, sometimes for postal convenience, and sometimes because of other government actions. For example, when Jacksonville, Florida annexed all of the areas of Duvall county not already in an incorporated city, all of the rural post offices in the county became part of the Jacksonville post office. When that happened all of the zip codes were changed from a 320-- zip code to a 322-- zip code to conform with the rest of the Jacksonville zip codes, all of which started with 322.
Then there are those post offices that originally had only one zip, and now have multiple zips. Case in point, Beaverton, Oregon originally was 97005 and covered all of Beaverton, part of Tigard, part of Portland, and much of the surrounding area in Washington, Clackamas, & Multnomah counties not in any city. Today Beaverton with the same delivery area has 97005, 97006, 97007, 97008, & 97075 and this delivery area includes part of Hillsboro.
The postal service has also reassigned zips 88900 thru 88999 from New Mexico to Nevada. And (if I remember correctly) 88800 thru 88899 to Austin, Texas, also from New Mexico. Originally Texas zips were from 75000 thru 79999, New Mexico from 87000 thru 89999, and Nevada from 89000 thru 89999.
Then you have the zips for the U.S. territories, the U.S. Virgin Islands & Puerto Rico (00600 thru 00999) and the Pacific Territories, like Guam, Wake Island, Micronesia, etc (96900 thru 96999). Mail sent to/from these zips go by a whole different set of rules, a kind of a combination of domestic and international mail rules.
Finally, there are the Military zips, assigned to APOs (Military bases) & FPOs (Individual Ships). Those getting mail from New York (09000 thru 09999, mostly in Europe & North Atlantic), Miami (34000 thru 34099, mostly Africa, Middle East, South Atlantic, Indian Ocean areas), and San Francisco (96200 thru 96699, Pacific Ocean area) have a whole new set of rules devised by the U.S. military.
If I remember correctly, the 004 and/or 005 series (00400 thru 00499, 00500 thru 00599) have been recently assigned to large organizations in New York, like Reader's Digest, Internal Revenue, and the like. Needless to say, those zips are also outside of the range of zips assigned to New York state (10000 thru 14999).
Hope this "clarifies" the U.S. zip code system even more for all of you. lol.
mmerlinn
"Political correctness is the BADGE of a COWARD!"
