In czarist times, the post-and-telegraph office of Pakruojis (Pokroi) was opened some time before 1900. Most, if not all, of its cancellers have been listed by Vytautas Fugalevičius (Witold Fugalewitsch) in his volume on Postal Markings in Lithuania.
In WWI, the township Pakruojis (Pokroi) was taken by units of the German 5th Cavalry Brigade (2. Kavallerie-Division) at 4 p.m. in heavy rain on July 21, 1915. A fierce Russian cavalry counterattack followed the next day embracing the ancient Pokroi Manor further east, but eventually did not stop the German advance. During the German occupation Pakruojis had no post office of its own, and probably obtained its mail via the Postgebiet Ob.-Ost civilian post office at Panevėžys (Poniewiez).
The German retreat from Russia at the end of 1918 was followed by the advancing Soviet Red Army whose units moved through Pakruojis in mid-January 1919. Though a small number of Soviet Russian post offices were opened in north Lithuania in the first half of 1919, no such office was set up in Pakruojis. The Bolsheviks were evicted after the German volunteer Border Defence troops (Grenzschutz Ost) retook Šiauliai on March 11, 1919, and parts of their Brigade Schaulen passed through Pakruojis some time later.
This was followed, in the area, by the formation of several assemblies of Lithuanian local self-government and militia, including a committee in Pakruojis. But the north-eastern part of Lithuania was still in the hands of hostile Bolsheviks, so fighting continued. Clashes also kept occuring with German troops of the Grenzschutz as they foraged the countryside for daily necessities. Such skirmishes became more intense when large segments of the remaining German volunteer troops joined the so-called West Army (in Lith. known as “bermontininkai”) led nominally by an adventurous Russian ex-officer, “Count” Bermondt-Awaloff. The “bermontininkai” were finally expelled by Lithuanian troops in November – December 1919.
During these turbulent times a Lithuanian post office was opened in Pakruojis on August 10, 1919. The first appointee (Lith. “įgaliotinis”) was Alfredas Mitransas who was in charge until his transfer to open a new post office at Saločiai, on ca. October 19, 1919. At Pakruojis he was replaced by Aleksandras Šapočkinas.
The earliest Lithuanian stamps sold at Pakruojis were values from the Fourth Berlin Issue, later followed by the Sėjėjas Issue and so forth. At the beginning, the post office had no formal postmarker, so cancelling of stamps was done by two rough strokes forming a diagonal cross. It was only in 1920 that Pakruojis was supplied with a normal calendar-type canceller. Below is shown a rare postcard franked with two 20 sk. and 40 sk. stamps from the Fourth Berlin Issue (colln. Vytautas Doniela).