Customers at the Rolling Bay post office may appear with mail in one hand, and a dog biscuit in the other.

Letters are stamped and sent on, but the doggie treat is delivered directly under the counter to Muffin, the 12-year-old Jack terrier that is the post office mascot.

Rolling Bay postmaster Carolyn Leech greets postal patrons by name as she hands them their mail.

It’s all part of the homey atmosphere of Bainbridge’s home post office.

“Winslow is a station branch of the Seattle post office, and they report to the postmaster there,” Leech said. “We are the island-based post office.”

The Rolling Bay post office has been an island fixture since the doors first opened on April 6, 1892. Credit for starting it has been given to several individuals through the years, including Dona Falk, Tom Sivertson, Martin Somis and John J. Arnot.

Leech, who became postmaster three years ago, inherited a post that was for nearly six decades a family enterprise – run by Lucas Rodal from 1915 to 1940, then passed to his son Henry.

When the younger Rodal assumed the postmaster mantle in 1940, his full-time job earned him $50 a month, and a small percentage of postal sales to pay for the station’s utilities.

Henry Rodal collected and distributed Bainbridge mail for the next 33 years while the government closed down other rural stations in Port Blakely, Lynwood, Seabold and Creosote through the 1950s and ‘60s until only Winslow and Rolling Bay were left.

Neighbors there banded together to save their station, signing a petition that area resident Kit Kleist carried door-to-door.

The post office has changed locations several times since it opened on a site nearer the water.

When the original building burned in 1915, Lucas Rodal moved the office to the southwest corner of Valley Road and Sunrise Drive – in the back of a grocery store that is now Bay Hay and Feed – and Henry Rodal relocated to the current site on the north side of the same building.

The physical location may have shifted over the course of a century, but the dispute between islanders and the U.S. government over the station’s name has been a constant.

While the feds list the address as “Rollingbay,” the locals know better.

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The post office does not deliver mail, but serves the 360 islanders who hold post office boxes and use the 98061 ZIP code.

And with a lobby that is just seven feet wide 19 feet long, it doesn’t take many customers to pack the space. Leech and Hesik must maneuver around each other behind the counter.

“It’s a great little place,” postal assistant Blue Hesik said. “The lobby’s like an extension of the coffee shop next door. People chat and catch up. Most of the time, everyone is really friendly.”

Henry Rodal’s son, Arney Rodal, can remember when his father made patrons feel comfortable hanging out at the post office.

Hesik says that Leech sets the same welcoming tone.

“She has that human touch,” Hesik said. “She knows when customers’ grandchildren are born, what they have planted in their gardens and when their goats give birth.

“It’s hard for them to adjust to someone new like me.”

Leech says that while she never thinks about what news the letters that pass through her hands might contain, some catalogues are tempting – particularly during the holiday season.

She and Hesik wait for catalogues that are deemed undeliverable – those are fair game for a quick read, although they can’t be removed from the post office.

Leech, who came to Bainbridge from the Willaupa post office near Hoodsport where she worked for 11 years, says she loves her job.

So, apparently, does her dog.

“If we’ve had three deliveries in a day,” Leech said, “then Muffin has had at least three treats.”