The end of an era.

The Boston Globe reports.

At Bates College, student mailboxes are shutting for good

LEWISTON, Maine — It was as much a part of daily life at Bates College as eating lunch, a ritual as predictable as the trek to class — but more anticipated.

On the way to the cafeteria and perhaps again on the way out, students descended on the campus post office, spun their mailbox dial left, right, left, and then right again, and peered to see if there was a letter, or better yet, a yellow package slip.

In the decades before cellphones or even dormitory room land lines, letters linked students to the outside world, and the daily trip to the post office linked them to one another.

Today, the mailboxes sit largely untouched, and the post office is little more than a hushed hallway. That is why at the end of the summer, the boxes will click shut for the last time, a sign of how the Internet is changing college campuses.