Do you know of Opal ???
This page is an orphan - a placeholder until we can discover more about Opal. When we encounter a name that is new to us, we add it to our Gazetteer with the hope that we'll discover more information in the future. Such is the case with Opal.
Our sources for Opal (see Mentions and References below) indicate that it was a community with a post office by the same name. Unfortunately our sources aren't clear about the location of Opal other than they indicate that Opal would be found somewhere in Conecuh County, Alabama.
From the Blevins / Hellbock List: The post office opened in 1890 and closed in 1892.
This entry could have originated in error. It might be that a source had a misprint, was simply wrong or we made a transcription error while referencing it. Many of the documents we reference are from the 1800s and the early 1900s, with some easier to read than others.
Part of the difficulty in identifying whether a name is a post office or a community lies with how Post Offices were named. We've prepared an article with our understanding of how post offices were named: Naming of Post Offices.
Communities Also Named Opal ...
We found thirteen communities that share the name Opal.
Within Alabama, the name Opal is unique.
Beyond Alabama, we know of another thirteen communities that are located throughout in the United States and Canada. Of these thirteen communities, twelve are located in the United States and one is in Canada.
- Communities Elsewhere In North America ...
- Alberta
- Please visit our profile page for the Alberta community of Opal.
- Arkansas
- Lonoke County
- Please visit our profile page for the Arkansas community of Opal [Lonoke County].
- Polk County
- Please visit our profile page for the Arkansas community of Opal [Polk County].
- White County
- We found mention of this community, but have little information.<1> For the information that we do have, please visit our profile page for the Arkansas community of Opal [White County].
- Michigan
- Missouri
- Lawrence County
- Please visit our profile page for the Missouri community of Opal [Lawrence County].
- New Mexico
- Otero County
- Please visit our profile page for the New Mexico community of Opal [Otero County].
- South Dakota
- Meade County
- Please visit our profile page for the South Dakota community of Opal [Meade County].
- Virginia
- Fauquier County
- Please visit our profile page for the Virginia community of Opal [Fauquier County].
- West Virginia
- Nicholas County
- Please visit our profile page for the West Virginia community of Opal [Nicholas County].
- Wisconsin
- Wyoming
- Alberta
Miscellaneous References and Mentions for Opal ...
We've created the following list to keep track of the sources that proved useful in adding to our knowledge about Opal:
Found in a comprehensive list of Post Offices that was created by Cameron Blevins and Richard Helbock.<2>
Business Atlas and Shippers' Guide (1895)
Published by Rand McNally & Co.
A note taken from the Shipper's Guide for Opal - Services available: had a Post Office, no Railroad mentioned
More Orphans in Conecuh County ...
Can you help?
As we explained above, when we encounter a name that might be a community or a post office we add it to our Gazetteer. If we have little information to go with the name, we call them Orphans. Below are Orphans that we believe to be located in Conecuh County.
Footnotes ...
| <1> | If we encounter the name of what might be a community, our methodology is to add that name to our Gazetteer as a placeholder. As we find more information about that community, it will be added to our Gazetteer. Just as a reminder: Our definition of a community is rather broad and includes those places (or areas) where several families lived and had a name which identified that place. For example, you might hear somebody say that they are going over to Bird Creek to see Pete ... Bird Creek is just a gas station and a couple of homes at the crossroads. While it might not be on the map, everybody in the area knows it by that name. Places of interest include buildings at a crossroad, several families clustered in a hollow or maybe the location of a way station. It also includes places like mines, lumber camps, ferry crossings, etc. The community might still exist, is now gone or only existed for just a short period of time. Also keep in mind that Opal could have been on the original document by mistake, misspelled, the original/alternate name of a community that we've listed elsewhere or was placed in the wrong county. Sometimes a post office or train station would have a different name than the community where it's located, so two names might be referring to the same community - we're working to straighten it all out. |
| <2> | A copy of their list with background information can be found at: https://cblevins.github.io/us-post-offices/data-biography/ |