Unique Northern Michigan Post Office is Like a Tiny House Cut in Half

Okay we get it, some northern Michigan locations don't have much of a population. A little hamlet like Toivola can claim a post office if not much else, but its USPS outpost looks like little more than a tiny house cut in half.

Post offices around the country come in many different shapes and sizes, but this little half-house in the Upper Peninsula is one of the more odd ones.

Perhaps the design is helpful in the snow. With the steep roof slant and the green house next door to shelter the building, the snow may not be as big a problem as it could be.

The Toivola post office, 49965, is open just 4 hours weekdays from 9AM to 1PM. If you want to visit, it's located on M-26 in Houghton County well south of the county seat and home to Michigan Tech, Houghton.

What appears to be the only thing going in Toivola, a bar called the Mosquito Inn, is closed and facing foreclosure and a tax sale.

The Post Office is located at the corner of M-26 and Misery Bay Road. As an aside, with a bar called the Mosquito Inn and being at the crossroads of Misery Bay, they're really not selling us on the charm of Toivola.

The post office does however get positive reviews on Google including a shoutout to the likely Postmaster, Charlie.

So is the little half-house near Houghton the smallest post office in Michigan? Not by a long shot. That honor belongs to a building that's a little more than a broom closet located in mid-Michigan's Gratiot County. Elm Hall has the distinction of having the state's smallest post office.