Contributed by Otto Hansen’s granddaughter, Adelaide Grendon

For some years around 1920, before the railway was built, Otto Hansen had the Hampden Post Office and Store and the mail contract. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, he would collect the mail from The Leap and deliver as far north as Blackrock, the other side of Calen. One day he was delivering the mail by sulky and our mother, then a young girl, was with him. They came to Murray Creek which then had no bridge, so they made ready to ford the creek. There had been a storm in the headwaters but they did not expect what they saw when they looked up the creek. A wall of water was fast approaching. The prudent course was to stop there and go back home; however, grandfather cried, “The mail must go through!” and whipped the horse to cross faster. They went up the far bank just as the wall of water passed behind them. Needless to say, mother never forgot that day and often told the story.