The site has become a community postal agency with mail lodgement, mail collection, postage stamp sales and postage assessment services all being provided alongside their usual hospitality.

Highway Milkbar owner Jess Barker has run the business for two years, and said the postal agency would start out small, but if it was used by the community it would have the chance to grow.

"The post office will become just part of what we do," she said.

"At the moment we have the facility to sell Australia Post products, pre-paid envelopes, parcel packs and stamps and we will be able to do things like mail redirection, parcel pick-up and drop off eventually.

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"It is pretty basic for now and we hope that one day we can get more facilities and do more stuff, but it depends on the volume of trade.

"So the more people we can get in and the more parcels and stamps we can get through us then the better the chance we have of picking up more services."

The Highway Milkbar agency will operate separately from the Main Street postal service and Ms Barker expects as they become more established a mail boundary will be set up.

Ms Barker, who has lived all her life in Stawell, said she initially reached out to Australia Post to show her interest in opening the agency once again, after it was closed around 15 years ago.

"There always was a post office here and I wanted to get it back," she said.

"They approached me last year to see if I would be interested in starting it up again.

"It is beneficial for this side of town and it is easy to get to, people can pull up and do what they need to do.

"I think long term it will be really beneficial for people to have a way to pay their bills in here too, but that will take some time.

"The highway is really busy and this can be a spot where people can pay their bills and post envelopes, parcels.

"Then it will not just be the locals and the business down this end, it will also be for the traffic coming through."

Ms Barker said more Australia Post branding would come as the service begins to expand.

Stawell has a complicated history of post offices, with the Longfield Street site first used as a post office in 1895.

Prior to that site the first Post Office was opened in 1857 and it was a mobile office that followed the miners around the goldfields.

In 1858 a portable building opened on Commercial Street, Pleasant Creek and was known as the Pleasant Creek Post Office.

Then 1860 the portable building relocated to the rear of the Post and Telegraph Office in Leslie Street, Pleasant Creek.

In 1861, this office was renamed as the Stawell Post Office and became the Stawell West Post Office in 1870.

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Then in 1895 the Stawell West Post Office shifted into the grocer shop of Mr Jack Simpson in Longfield Street, Stawell West, which is now the Highway Milk Bar and Cafe.

This Longfield Street site then passed through several different owners hands across the next century.

In 1912 Mr Jack Simpson sold his business to Mr Alf Miller, including the Post Office. In February 1930, Mr Alan Munro bought the corner Milkbar off Mr J. McIntosh.

Throughout the 1930's there was several ownership changes until in 1956, when Mr Lin Mason bought the business from Mr Graeme Pollock.

In 1959 the business sold again to Laurie and Roma Bennett who also had a Milk Bar in Longfield Street.

After 41 years in business Laurie and Roma Bennett retired on June 30 2000 and Jenny and James Burkhalter bought the Post Office and merge it with their Milk Bar next door.

This story was written with the help of the Stawell Historical Society.

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