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Can you tell me, where is Mango?

The community has its name on street signs, a school and parks, but it primarily exists in 1,200 rented post office boxes.

By LETITIA STEIN
Published December 16, 2005

MANGO - The highway sign promises a sweet destination, a place called Mango.

From Interstate 75, take Exit 260 and go 2 miles east.

There, on Mango Road sits Mango Elementary, across the street from Mango Dog Park, next to Mango Recreation Center.

Is this Mango?

"The little signs say Mango," says Linda Timmons, the director at the recreation center for 15 years. "It's Mango, but the mailing address is Seffner."

She taps a finger at her pursed lips.

"Hmmm . . . . Now that you have me thinking. I'm not sure myself."

Why the confusion?

Mango appears in bold font on regional maps. It's named on exits from I-75, and Interstate 4 road signs note Mango's commercial hub on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

But there are no Mango addresses here.

To find Mango, follow the green signs with arrows to the post office. After two sharp turns, you'll face a dead end on Broadway Avenue.

There's a red strip center. It shares a parking lot with a QuickMart.

Welcome to Mango, a place that starts and ends at the post office.

"We're it," says postmaster Candace Hull, who blames an early postmaster for the setup.

Since 1880, Mango has claimed this post office. Historically, everyone in town came here to pick up mail. But when home delivery started, the Mango branch declined the service.

"They had the opportunity, but they passed it up," said Hull, speculating that the postmaster at the time might have considered rural delivery too much work.

Instead, Seffner, Brandon and Tampa picked up Mango's addresses.

Thus, began an identity crisis.

At the Mango Barber Shop, Arthur Hays still uses Jeris hair tonic and shaves around the ears. His barbershop, next to the post office, hasn't moved since 1964. He watches over the town from behind a worn pair of leather chairs.

"Mango's not very big. We're on the extreme north side of town. The tax office is on the extreme south side of town. The post office is the hub of business," he says in a deadpan voice.

He adds: "We're all in the same building."

It never bothered him that the barbershop didn't have an address. But the county got worried about finding it in an emergency after Sept. 11. The Mango Barber Shop was assigned a street address at 11505 E Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

The formal address is in Seffner.

Hays picks up mail next door in Mango.

"It's always been a joke that when you walk out the front door of the post office, you're in Seffner," says Sharon Carter, who grew up in the area and has considered writing a book about its history.

A decade ago, the Seffner business chamber erected road signs to identify the communities of Seffner, Mango, Dover and Valrico. They struggled with where to place the markers.

Do people care?

Consider that a Seffner sign raised at Parsons Avenue and Windhorst Road disappeared overnight. Carter thinks the neighborhood wanted to call itself Brandon.

Back in Mango, the highway signs are clear, even if only the 1,200 rented boxes at the post office have Mango addresses.

The postmaster, Hull, recently received a phone call from the Transportation Department, which apparently is planning a road widening project in Mango.

If they can find the community.

"You're probably going to think this is a strange question," she recalls the official asking. "What are Mango's boundaries?"

"You're not going to find an address in Mango," Hull replied.

Letitia Stein can be reached at 661-2443 or lstein@sptimes.com

[Last modified December 15, 2005, 10:04:04]