Wesley Kelley moved to Linville Street in Glen Alpine five years ago. The address has caused problems he never expected.
It’s the same for some of his neighbors.
Kelley said he has faced ongoing issues with mail and package delivery due to an address discrepancy in which his address is mixed up with a similar one in Â鶹´«Ã½. It also has caused he and his wife to get higher tax bills.
He said over time, they’ve found workarounds for it, one of which is using the Glen Alpine post office’s actual physical address as a mailing address, and putting their post office box number as the apartment number to get packages.
People along Linville Street in Glen Alpine have to rent a post office box to get their mail due to another Linville Street in the city of Â鶹´«Ã½.
“But for some odd reason, Linville Street in Glen Alpine, which is smack dead in the middle of the ZIP code, is zoned Morganton,†Kelley said. “So much so that I was having an issue with our property tax on our new vehicle. They couldn’t find our address, and we were also being charged city of Â鶹´«Ã½ property taxes when we’re not supposed to be.â€
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The root of the problem may be that there is a Linville Street in Glen Alpine and a Linville Street in Â鶹´«Ã½.
It’s not just a problem for those with the Glen Alpine address.
“I’ve come home from school before and had an entire bathroom suit sitting in my front yard for the 112 Linville Street that’s actually in Morganton, where they were remodeling that house,†Kelley said.
The owners of the Â鶹´«Ã½ address and Kelley have exchanged phone numbers so they can let the other know if they get a delivery for the other, Kelley said.
He said when his wife had to get a new cell phone, the company had to do a credit check on her and their address was not showing up.
“As far as anything goes, Glen Alpine does not exist,†Kelley said.
He added, “Why would a street that’s technically the Main Street of Glen Alpine be a Â鶹´«Ã½ address?â€
Addresses along the street have the house number, followed by the initials GA, then Â鶹´«Ã½ as the city with the Â鶹´«Ã½ ZIP code of 28655.
Betsy and Anthony Campany moved into their home on Linville Street in September 2022. Like the Kelleys, they had to get a post office box to get their mail and packages. The Campanys live close to the post office, and Betsy Campany said they wouldn’t get home delivery anyway. She said packages they order are delivered to the post office. But there have been times the packages they’ve ordered have been delivered to the equivalent Â鶹´«Ã½ Linville Street address, she said.
Betsy said she’s had to use the post office address for her driver’s license because of the matching Â鶹´«Ã½ address. She needs to renew her U.S. passport, but if she uses her real home address, it will be sent to someone at the equivalent Â鶹´«Ã½ address.
“I don’t know when Glen Alpine was determined not to be able to use the 28628 ZIP code, other than the post office,†Betsy Campany said. “But nobody in Glen Alpine and nobody in Â鶹´«Ã½ wants to address the issue. And so it’s frustrating to me.â€
It also scares her what might happen if she or her husband need emergency services.
Jeff Czarkowski, pharmacist and owner of Clinic Drug in Glen Alpine, checks a prescription on Thursday. He said the other Linville Street in Â鶹´«Ã½ makes getting mail and packages at the pharmacy impossible.
Campany believes the street name needs to be changed so residents along Linville Street can have peace of mind or receive packages like everyone else.
Jeff Czarkowski owns and is the pharmacist of Clinic Drug, which has an address of 106 Linville St., Â鶹´«Ã½.
He, too, has had packages delivered to the other address, which is the side of a building in Â鶹´«Ã½. If he tries to put in the address of the pharmacy when ordering something from Amazon, it will reject the address and say it’s invalid. He’s also ordered items that have been “returned to sender†because of the address confusion.
“Like, basically, on the U.S. Postal (web)site, even though I have a physical address, I don’t exist,†Czarkowski said. “Like I’m not here because they never deliver mail to it.â€
His work-around is to have items delivered to his home instead of the store, and pay for a P.O. box.
“It just definitely seemed to be, like, who you asked, there was a different answer to how to do it. Or that you’d get the other thing of, like, ‘Well, why don’t you try this,’†Czarkowski said.
He questions why the road isn’t renamed to either Pitts Street or Powerhouse Road.
Jeff Czarkowski, pharmacist and owner of Clinic Drug in Glen Alpine, stands in front of his pharmacy that’s on Linville Street. He and some residents along the street say having an address of Linville Street makes things difficult.
Addresses and road names
That one street in the small town has three different names.
The street starts off on the eastern end as Pitts Street, turns into Linville Street after the post office and then turns into Powerhouse Road going out of town.
The Glen Alpine post office is next to the town hall and is at the corner of Pitts and Catawba streets.
Those living along Linville Street in Glen Alpine are to code the address with GA (for Glen Alpine) after the numeric street address. For instance, an address of 114 Linville St., in Glen Alpine would be followed by “#GA, Morganton, NC 28655.â€
However, putting that address into Google Maps shows Linville Street in Â鶹´«Ã½.
Changing names
Scott Black, Information Technology director for Burke County, said the issue comes down to two streets with the same name and the same number ranges with the same ZIP code, because the Glen Alpine ZIP code is only used for P.O. boxes. Black said because Glen Alpine is a post office box only ZIP code, street delivery addresses use a Â鶹´«Ã½ ZIP code.
If someone puts the Glen Alpine ZIP code on a piece of mail or package with a Linville Street address, it will get rejected, Black said.
Glen Alpine is not alone in having to use another city’s name and ZIP code in their addresses, Black said. Many Drexel addresses use a Â鶹´«Ã½ ZIP code and Rutherford College uses Connelly Springs, even for its town hall address. Glen Alpine, Drexel and Rutherford College are all incorporated towns in Burke County.
“It’s confusing. It’s definitely confusing for folks,†Black said.
Black said he worked with the city of Â鶹´«Ã½ and town of Glen Alpine in 2019 to change the names of streets with overlapping names. Linville Street was one that neither municipality wanted to change, he said.
“Unfortunately, I can’t force it, because it’s not in my jurisdiction. And we got several streets that had overlapping addresses changed,†he said. Linville Street was one which, at the time, he couldn’t get Â鶹´«Ã½ and Glen Alpine to change.
“Glen Alpine obviously won’t change it because it’s their main street,†Black said.
The street in Glen Alpine has three names, which Black said has been that way since he arrived in the 1990s and could have been that way before 911 addressing.
He said changing the name would affect about 30 property owners in Â鶹´«Ã½ or about the same in Glen Alpine.
Black said to get the name changed, it would have to go before town council and a public hearing would need to be held.
He said another word could be added to the street, such as Linville View, or the name could change completely to something different, so the residents wouldn’t have to change their house numbers.
But there would be the hassle and expense of changing their address, which would have to be changed on identification, credit cards and elsewhere, Black said. He usually tells people to work through a change over a year to minimize the impact.
Black said the first step to changing the street name would be for residents to petition the town council.
