Encinitas has a once-in-a-century date with history on Friday, Sept. 20, when the calendar marks 92024, the city’s main ZIP code.
To commemorate the occasion, the U.S. Postal Service holds a 92024 Date Meets ZIP event on Friday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Encinitas Post Office.
The alignment of calendar dates with ZIP codes happens once a century in relatively few locations nationwide, according to a Postal Service announcement.
“We’re excited and honored to host this rare event,” Encinitas Postmaster Chuck Thomsen said in the announcement. “It recognizes the unique ties between USPS and our community. As outlined in USPS’s Delivering for America plan, we are committed to serving the changing needs of our customers nationwide.”
The alignment will be celebrated by the sale of commemorative envelopes at the Encinitas Post Office featuring a “92024 Date Meets ZIP” postmark. The postmark will also be available at the office to cancel mailable items presented by customers.
The event will include refreshments, and the special envelopes with commemorative cancellation will be available while supplies last.
So to mark the century, what was happening 100 years ago in the rural farming communities that now make up Encinitas, on and about Saturday, Sept. 20, 1924? Here is a snapshot, with help from Encinitas Historical Society archivist Hillel Schwartz.
According to the Daily Times-Advocate in Escondido (the Encinitas Coast Dispatch was not yet publishing):
✔ On Sept. 20, 1924, the Doren Perrine ranch, the site of the historic Mackinnon ranch in the Cardiff area, held an auction of furniture and farm equipment. Hector and Sara Cray Mackinnon were the earliest white settlers in the Cardiff area, having arrived in 1875. “Prices were good” at the large all-day auction, “which means that they ran high,” the Times-Advocate reported.
✔ Also at that time, water had begun flowing to the Encinitas and Leucadia areas from Lake Hodges after completion of the dam about six years before, in 1918.
The Encinitas Post Office is located at 1150 Garden View Road. More information about the 92024 event can be found on the Postal Service’s California News page.
