54. At the present time, only Maryland does not have an official Post 1. In the first years of the Legion, when a flood of applications for initial post charters came in, posts in many departments were assigned a number based on when they turned in their application - thus the first applying post in each department would have been named Post 1. The departments are responsible for establishing criteria for, and assigning, numbers to posts.

Of course, in the 90-plus years since then, this order has changed in some instances. If an original Post 1 became inactive, the number may have been assigned to a new post later. Posts can also petition to change their numbers. In 1967, Post 198 in Speedway, Ind., built a new post home across the street from the famous Indianapolis Motor Speedway. To mark the move, they asked for and received permission from the Department of Indiana to change their post number to 500.