There has seemed to have been a near numinous attraction to the post office building. The November 1, 1882 issue of Our Continent described the lure of a big city post office when it observed, there is, perhaps, no more promising field for the study of human nature in all its phases than a large post-office. Many and curious are the characters who daily resort hither to inquire for letters which never arrive, or who find in the bustling corridors a fascination which they cannot resist."

Post offices, particularly in small towns, can serve as focal points of social interaction. The post office links the community and the individual to the federal government. The arrival of the mail drew a town’s attention. Work stopped and church services occasionally ended early, just so that the mail could be collected. Post office buildings are the physical manifestation of the links between individuals, businesses, governments and organizations. They are the magic places wherein the secrets of mail processing are kept away from prying eyes. They are the buildings from which carriers emerge each day to bring mail to our homes and offices.

The post office as a separate, independent building for mail appeared slowly on the landscape. Not because there were so few. On the contrary, as early as 1831 when Alexis de Tocqueville was recording his observations of the new country, the United States had twice as many post offices as Great Britain. Almost 9,000 postmasters were entrusted with the mail in our cities and towns. That did not, however, translate into funding for separate post office facilities in those localities. Instead, postmasters received, sorted and distributed mail from quite a variety of buildings. Taverns, coffeehouses, print shops and even old churches served as post offices for decades before the first post office buildings appeared. People retrieved their mail in post offices set up in commercial and multi-use buildings.

In the first decade of the 19th century, three cities that saw most of the nation’s mail volume, New York City, Philadelphia, and Boston, had postal facilities that were housed respectively in the postmaster’s own home, the corner of the mercantile exchange, and a hotel basement.

It was not until the mid 19th century that separate buildings began to be built just to house a city’s post office. As mail volumes grew the service required more space and control over the mail it distributed to a community.

In 1864, post offices were divided into classes. Whether a separately constructed stately and inspiring structure, or a corner of a general store, America’s post offices signaled a place where local and federal interests met. It is where we got our tax forms and registered for the draft, registered livestock reports and even (from 1911-1967) banked! As cities expanded, smaller sub-station post offices were added in different communities, managed through a central or main post office under a single postmaster.

In the post office classification system, first-class post offices were the largest; followed, as would be expected, by second-class; third-class; and finally fourth-class. The class designation was determined by the office's receipts and mail volume. Postmasters in certain classes kept a portion of the proceeds in lieu of their salary.

Fourth-class postmasters were appointed by the Postmaster General. First-, second-, and third-class postmasters were appointed by the President and usually confirmed by the Senate. These latter three classes became known as Presidential Class Offices, or Presidential Appointments.

FOURTH-CLASS POST OFFICES
Many of the nation's fourth-class post offices were located in tiny general stores or similar small quarters, cramped confines that could make serving the public somewhat unpleasant, or even requiring the postmasters to be downright improper. A case in point was the first post office in the tiny hamlet of Creede, Colorado. It was housed in tight quarters in a surveyor's hut. The general-delivery unit consisted of empty canned-fruit boxes stacked one on top of the other. No more than one customer could fit inside the post office at any given time. Postmaster C. C. Meister realized that this sort of arrangement simply would not do, so on his own he moved the post office to his cabin, which could accommodate as many as ten people, although then there was not any room left for him.

There was a sharp contrast between firsthand fourth-class post offices, much like the difference in the classic folk tale between the country mouse and the city mouse. Fourth-class post offices were folksy places cared for largely by the lone proprietor-postmaster. They were main street structures, which tended to borrow decorative elements and forms from classical styles. First-class offices, on the other hand, were grand edifices, attended to by an army of clerks.

In either case, the postmaster ruled the roost, at least on paper. As often as not, larger-town postmasters were simply absentee landlords. The pervasiveness of this situation was pointed out in Congressional hearings. First Assistant Postmaster Charles P. Grandfield advised a House Committee that the average big city postmaster would "simply show up at his desk for an hour or two each day." Most of the work of running the place fell to the assistant postmaster.

Fourth-class postmasters were not as fortunate and the Post Office Department did not deliver much assistance. Fourth-class offices were supplied with eight-ounce balance scales, plain facing slips for identifying the destinations of bundles of mail, canceling ink, stamp pads, and marking devices. If the annual receipts topped $100, twine and wrapping paper were also provided. Other than that, local postmasters furnished everything else.

The cost of furnishing their own post offices was a considerable hardship for many postmasters. Interior window units varied. Most opted for simple arrangements while a few chose to spend the money for elaborate lobby units. When fourth-class postmasters lost their jobs most had to figure out what to do with their post office window units. Often these were purchased by the next postmaster, who simply moved it into his or her business establishment.

FIRST-CLASS POST OFFICES
First-class offices are the largest class of post offices. Often architecturally grand, they typically have more than enough room for patrons, their physical size and shape echoing their importance. Unlike fourth-class offices, which largely are located on private property, first-class post offices are usually government-owned buildings. First-class post offices symbolize the prominence and the presence of the federal government on the local level.

On occasion, the size of the post office was a poor match for its population. The post office at Port Townsend, Washington, a massive Romanesque-style building, is a structural beacon, a prominent visual focal point, situated on a bluff overlooking the Straits of Juan De Fuca. Its placement proclaims the federal presence. The massive sandstone exterior and copper-covered hipped roofline of this 30,883 square foot structure originally dwarfed its immediate surroundings. It was far grander structurally than was necessary; at best, it was intended to serve a population of 6,500 in 1889. By the time of its completion the population had dwindled to fewer than 2,000, thanks to local economic failures and the Depression of 1893.

As the representative of the federal government, these post office building had to impress. During the 1880s and 1890s, one trend was for post offices to resemble opulent town houses. These structures would not be out of place along any grand boulevard, except perhaps for the tastefully concealed, but telltale loading dock. In other cases, post office buildings were nothing less than glorified secular cathedrals. As well as being grand structures, many large urban post office buildings were grand sights. Tall towers were quite the fashion, even though the towers and embellishments served little functional purpose; they did not move the mail any faster or farther, but they did make the building stand out. Many of these towers were massive things, frequently overpowering the rest of the building in terms of their height or breadth.

American eagles were often incorporated into the designs of federal buildings during the 1890s and 1900s, as were one or more tall flagpoles for the display of the Stars and Stripes. This use of the American flag was another telltale sign of the federal presence. This remains true of post offices today.

THE VICTORIAN ERA ARCHITECTS

Ammi B. Young
Born in Lebanon, New Hampshire
Supervising Architect          1842-1862
Notable other work  Montpelier, Vermont, state capitol building

Isaiah Rogers (1800-1869)
Supervising Architect          1862-1865
Notable other work  Tremont Hotel, Boston, Massachusetts (first hotel to have indoor plumbing), four burglar proof vaults in the northwest corner of the Treasury Building

Alfred Bult Mullett (1834-1890)
Born in England, arrived in US in 1845, worked for Isaiah Rogers in Cincinnati, Ohio
Supervising Architect          1866-1874
Notable other work  Carson City, Nevada and San Francisco, California Mint buildings, Old Executive Office Building, Washington, DC

William Appleton Potter
Potter helped shape the High Victorian Gothic period of American architecture
Supervising Architect          January 1875-July 1876
Notable other work  Alexander Hall and Chancellor Green Library,  Princeton University, Advent Lutheran Church, New York, New York. Advent Church was his final work.

James G. Hill (1839/41-1913)
Born in Malden, Massachusetts
Supervising Architect          August 1876-September 1883
Notable other work  Soldier's Home, Men's Dormitory, Washington DC

Mifflin E. Bell (c1846-1904)
Born in Iowa
Supervising Architect          November 1883-July 1887
Notable other work  Des Moines, Iowa, state capitol building, (collaborated)

Will A. Freret (1833-1881)
Born in New Orleans, Louisiana
Supervising Architect          1887-1888
Notable other work  U.S. Mint in Philadelphia

James H. Windrim (1840-1919)
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Supervising Architect 1889-1890
Notable other work  Masonic Temple and Academy of Natural Sciences Buildings, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Willoughby J. Edbrooke (1843-1896)
Born in England
Supervising Architect 1891-1892
Notable other work  Many of the original Ellis Island buildings, New York, New York, co-designer of the Atlanta, Georgia state capitol building

Jeremiah O'Rourke (1833-1815)
Born in Ireland, came to U.S. in 1850s
Supervising Architect          1893-1894
Notable other work  Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, Newark, New Jersey

William Martin Aiken (1855-1908)
Born in Drainsville, New Jersey
Supervising Architect          1895-1896
Notable other work  War Department Building (1866-67), Washington DC

James Knox Taylor (1857-1929)
Born in Knoxville, Illinois, spent two years as director of the department of architecture at MIT
Supervising Architect 1897-1912
Notable other work  Northern Pacific Depot, Little Falls, Minnesota, Dayton Avenue Presbyterian Church and the Endicott Building, St. Paul, Minnesota

Thirteen men largely dictated federal architecture during that period; they were the nation's principal architects for public buildings. Their official title initially was Federal Architect, later Architectural Advisor, and finally Supervising Architect. The latter designation, which was used informally by 1852, was legislatively established in 1864. The Supervising Architects were a part of the Treasury Department's Office of Construction. The Treasury Department was responsible for overseeing the design, construction, and operation of all principal government-owned buildings, including major custom houses, court houses, and post offices. Each architect shared a singular architectural purpose: To make the presence of the federal government prominent within the local community.

Early on, the fledgling Office of Construction eliminated the haphazard use of local commissions to award design contracts with private architects, opting instead to employ a staff architect-presumably one of exceptional caliber-who would work directly under the supervision of the Office Chief. This approach streamlined the planning and construction processes and provided greater central control of architectural projects. But, there were drawbacks. A government worker in Washington, D.C., even one of renown, was seldom capable of anticipating local whims, swaying public opinion, or appreciating the best available indigenous building materials. Furthermore, the nature of the work automatically thrust the incumbent into the political circus that surrounds life in the nation’s capital.

During the Victorian era, the Supervising Architects were initially headed by Alexander H. Bowman, a captain with the Army Corps of Engineers, who was detailed from that job to provide "more efficient management" to the government's building program. Bowman was responsible for overseeing the design, construction, and operation of all principal government-owned buildings, including major custom houses, court houses, and post offices. Working with Bowman was his chief architect, Ammi Burnham Young. Young was a complex figure who was described by later peers as "a gentleman who had that kindly, hardboiled, wistful, shrewd, childlike, happy, faintly melancholy expression one usually associate) with architects." Another quality was that he apparently worked well with Bowman.

The Bowman and Young team streamlined planning and construction processes and provided greater central control of architectural projects. Aided by six draftsmen and a bookkeeper, who also doubled as a draftsman in a pinch, Bowman and Young embarked upon a totally unprecedented building program.

The architectural preferences of architects were apparent in many of the post office buildings they helped to create. Mills concentrated on Greek Revival forms; Ammi B. Young favored Renaissance Revival styles; Alfred B. Mullett preferred Second Empire structures; William A. Potter liked High Victorian Gothic designs; and Willoughby J. Edbrooke leaned toward large-scale Romanesque buildings. This diversity of tastes represented a dramatic and democratic flow in "old world" forms. These architects absorbed the spirit of these resurrected European styles, but their works were more than simple imitations. Instead, they endowed their adaptations with a rugged appearance of permanence, creating forms that were in keeping with our democratic values. James Knox Taylor preferred Beaux-Arts and Georgian forms. The Beaux-Arts style, which became popular as a result of the 1893 Chicago Fair, coincided with the end of Victorian-era architecture.

Unfortunately, many of the government architect's buildings amounted to little more than architectural fast food. All too often, they were lackluster structures, buildings with little if any variation. They represented the same bland diet of columns, eaves, clock towers, and embellishments repeatedly served up in town after town. Not all of the architects possessed the same abilities, sensitivities, or grasp for harmonious proportions. In addition, there was an abundance of less-than-desirable circumstances under which they were forced to work, including understaffing, rushed deadlines, bleak quarters, and burdensome red tape which forced these men to cut corners whenever possible. 

The workload of the Office of Supervising Architect rose and fell with the economic climate of the country. In 1853, the office was responsible for only 23 buildings. Prior to and after that, there was less work. But, in 1897, the number of designs totaled 297, with another 95 buildings under construction.

The workforce also grew. In 1857, the entire staff of the Office of Construction, including the architectural component, could be counted on the fingers of both hands. Roughly three decades later, a small-but still inadequate-army of 148 employees was assigned to the Supervising Architect's office.

Administratively, by 1896, the principal office functions had been divided up between six division chiefs. These section heads were responsible for engineering and drafting, inspection and materials, accounting, photography, law and records, computing, repairs, and tracings. The division chiefs answered to a chief executive officer, who in turn reported to the Supervising Architect.

Assembling a competent staff was not always easy. In his Annual Report for 1884, Mifflin E. Bell bitterly explained how "The office labors under great difficulty being unable to offer rates of pay sufficient to secure and retain in the service of the Government architects and draftsmen competent to perform the work satisfactorily." A decade later, Jeremiah O'Rourke faced the same problem. He advised the Chairman of the Senate's Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds, "The only reason for the slow progress of these works is the want of a technical force adequate to the demands of the office."

Things did not change. In 1896, William Martin Aiken complained about the disparity between the number of buildings authorized by acts of Congress and the technical and clerical assistance provided to do the work. At that time, he could not afford to assign more than two draftsmen to any particular project. Deep down, Aiken questioned if that number was actually available. His tiny staff had to prepare an array of required drawings for each building showing foundations, masonry, steel and iron construction, interior finishes, heating and ventilating systems, plumbing, and vaults. This was tantamount to shoestring designing. In effect, between April 1895 and January 1896, his office was occupied almost exclusively with completing unstudied and unfinished designs.

Several of the architects were artistically frugal, reusing the same basic designs over and over again. Minor cosmetic changes were sometimes made, principally to the exteriors, so as not to offend the local community by too obviously repeating an already constructed post office. Unlike structures of commerce or religion, federal buildings belong to the entire community.

These powerful and influential men had to accept the fact that they did not always have absolute authority over the appearance of government buildings. Their opinions were frequently tempered by political considerations or local desires. When the residents of Frankfort, Kentucky, objected to the use of bricks for their new Queen Anne style post office in 1884, it was constructed of stone instead, in an effort to placate the population.

On the surface, these men’s individual creativity may be hard to detect. It does not always come across when looking at existing exterior illustrations of their buildings. For this reason, they cannot be judged to have been "outstanding" or "mediocre" simply by perusing a gallery of their renderings. That would be unfair. A great deal more must be taken into consideration, including the various influencing factors mentioned previously, as well as others.

The work of the first "mass-production" architect employed by the government during the Victorian period, Ammi B. Young, for example, was carried out at a hectic pace, in many ways more hectic than was possible for those who would follow. Young was indeed a superb designer. Many of his Italian buildings, with Grecian details, were the same basic design. The post office at Galena, Illinois, is a classic example of Young's 'Style." Originally erected in the late 1850s as a post office and custom house for river traffic between St. Louis and Fort Snelling in Minnesota, the building is said to have been constricted from stone quarried for the Mormon Temple at Nauvoo, Illinois, which was destroyed during the 1840s. Perhaps the novelty of Young's style was that, although he closely followed classical architecture, he did so with two twists: He insisted that his designs be economical-which was highly unusual and significant in and of itself-and, rather than merely copying antiquity, his approaches featured originality in interpretation.

The last Supervising Architect of the Victorian age, James Knox Taylor, boasted that his style also was marked by a return to the classic tradition. Actually, his tenure was highlighted by a redundancy in design, a monotonous sameness, almost as if post office buildings were stamped out by one great cookie cutter. The sizable length of his tenure as Supervising Architect combined with the steady stream of hefty "pork barrel" government appropriations for new building started during his term of office, forced him to be architecturally frugal.

Between 1866 and 1897, the position of Supervising Architect changed hands nine times. During that same period, nearly 300 projects were undertaken. In addition, there was a constant stream of renovations or enlargements to buildings designed by earlier job holders. Because of these circumstances, many hybrid structures emerged. These buildings cannot be claimed by any one particular architect; rather, they combine the favorite styles of two or more supervising architects. Such composites are common. For example, Alfred Mullett had no qualms about redesigning the rooflines of several buildings planned by one of his predecessors, Ammi B. Young. In turn, William Potter redesigned some of Mullett's mansard rooflines and balloon and pyramidal pavilions in keeping with his Gothic taste.

The extension to the post office building at Des Moines, Iowa, is an excellent example of a hybrid structure. The overall Second Empire building, as originally designed by Alfred B. Mullett, was subsequently punctuated by the addition of a massive clock tower, a favored structural element used by James G. Hill, some years later.

Government buildings seldom escaped public scrutiny or controversy. They attracted broad-based interest. As a result, most projects were hampered by outside interference, miserly appropriations, congressional meddling, persistent investigations and professional jealousy from private architects looking for a piece of the action. Overly expensive government construction projects tended to take as much as three times as long to complete as private ventures. Dismissed amid outcries of overspending, Ammi B. Young found this out the hard way. In just two years, 1855 and 1856, Young developed the plans and specifications for 35 projects. That represents nearly twice as many buildings as were in the works when he assumed the office in 1853.

Comparisons of identical sets of lithographed prints of building styles of the time indicate that many of these projects were copies. The use of prints in the design and construction process was one of Young's most important contributions to the architect's office, eliminating the tedious and time-consuming task of tracing designs. Young happily reused his designs. It was expedient thing. Buildings with the same purpose could have the same basic appearance. Consequently, in 1855, matching post offices were created for seven locations: Buffalo and Oswego, New York; Newark, New Jersey; New Haven, Connecticut; Chicago, Illinois; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and Wheeling, West Virginia. The following year, Young repeated the same type of duplicating architecture in other cities utilizing a different set of lithographic plates.

Much like Young, both in terms of talent and productivity, Alfred Mullett was willing to reuse elements of old designs on smaller federal projects. Although a large number of designs created by Mullett were for smaller structures, several of his projects, such as the custom houses and post offices in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, and St. Louis, were immense. Mullett designed many of America's largest post offices, buildings that boldly present the Second Empire style. His work made the use of this style for commercial buildings and residences more common.

Mullett adorned his many smaller projects with a simple elegance, but it was his massive undertakings that allowed his tastes to run rampant. Mullett repeatedy ornamented his rooflines with allegorical designs and eagles declaring federal ownership.

Many Supervising Architects believed that they had made a mistake in accepting the job. Among them was Mullett's successor, William A. Potter, who told those attending the American Institute of Architects (AIA) convention meeting in November 1875, that "experience has shown that it is difficult, if not impossible, to separate the Office of Supervising Architect from political control to a greater or lesser degree.”  Within a matter of months, Potter expanded his view of "political control" to include the possibility that even an incompetent could get the job, if he was politically connected. Potter wrote that if that were to happen, as he feared was likely, then:

The country is liable thereby to be burdened by structures utterly lacking in those architectural qualities which should be found in the Works of a great nation. The stamp of inefficiency so imprinted in the national architecture is not of a nature soon to pass away, for not only will it remain itself a Monument to a vacuous system, but its teachings for evil can never be fully estimated. But should this evil be escaped, there remain yet others.

The additional evils to which Potter was referring included the voluminous administrative tasks routine to the position, the variety of projects to be evaluated, the constant stream of interruptions, which gave him no opportunity to really study the designs he was required to produce, and the always present potential for corruption. Potter and Mullett became quite contemptuous of each other.  The August 12, 1876 edition of American Architect reported that "if half [Potter] tells of Mr. Mullett, his predecessor in office, be true, that individual has shown a most remarkable pertinacity in underhanded dealing." Likewise, an acquaintance of Potter's, Montgomery Schuyler, recalled him saying that Mullett "knew a little something of everything, excepting architecture."

The mutual dislike was well earned. In 1878, long after Potter had resigned from the architect's office, he and several others were indicted on charges that they conspired to defraud the government of $850,000 on the stone supplied for the Chicago custom house and post office. Like the building itself, the case was flimsy. The alleged conspiracy occurred on September 1, 1876, several weeks after Potter had left the architect's office, at which time Potter was not in any position to influence a contractual agreement aimed at defrauding the government. Because of the overall lack of evidence everyone involved in the case was acquitted. Actually, the construction flaws in the Chicago post office building, which was begun in 1872, were basically Mullett's responsibility. By the time Potter was appointed, the inferior stonework was already in place. His principal involvement was in trying to correct the serious cracks and defects, which he initially observed early in 1875. Despite Potter's efforts to reinforce the crumbling structure, it had to be demolished in 16 years.

For Potter, the inability to take the time needed to really study his designs was perhaps the worst drawback to the job, leading him to explain:

Architecture is an art, and, like all arts, he who practices it successfully must give himself unreservedly into the contemplation of the problem. And, furthermore, the objects for which the buildings erected in this Office are constructed, with slight exception, so nearly alike, that the difficulty, the impossibility, of endowing them with variety and individuality must be apparent.

Potter hated the sweatshop mentality that dominated the position. He believed the duties of the government's architect were larger than one man could handle and that the responsibilities should be significantly redefined, with much of the design work delegated to qualified architects around the country. In a typically blunt and honest fashion, Potter hammered home his view in his 1875 Annual Report, stating:

I owe it, first, to myself, for I am before the people to be judged, as other men of my profession are who do not labor under the same difficulties as myself, and if my works fail of that artistic merit which the public have a right to expect, the blame is laid upon me, and not the false system under which I work, and where it belongs. I owe it, further, to the profession of architecture, whose members have right to their share in the honor of increasing the dignity and beauty of the art of this country, and whose work must do infinitely more to this end than the endeavors of any one man, be he ever so gifted. And, lastly, I owe it to the public, whose money I am placed here to watch, that it be faithfully and wisely expended, and that the best results attainable from it are achieved. I fail to do my whole duty in this if I remain inactive in this direction; for by some other system than that now obtaining, much better, more artistic and worthy work can be done.

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION
Between 1890 and 1910, government officials from the different agencies that occupied the grand, multi-purpose federal buildings began to doubt the wisdom of such structures. The practicality of combining a customs house, court house, and post office together became an issue for a number of reasons. For the postal service, space was a constant concern, especially as mail volumes grew. The location of these buildings was typically in the heart of the commercial district, where traffic congestion made moving the mail difficult. Also, rival railroads usually had terminals in different parts of the city. Mail transported by each of these competing rail carriers had to be collected by wagon and brought to the central post office for distribution. The alternative was to create a separate post office adjacent to, or right on top of, the tracks of a union station, a station that could unite rival tracks at one point. This was finally done after 1910 in most large cities. The National Postal Museum, for example, is housed in an old City Post Office built next to Washington, D.C.’s union station for just that reason.

Postal officials came to regard cities that failed to create a union terminal with frustration. Chicago, with its numerous depots, was the postal service's greatest headache in the years before World War I. By the mid 1890s, Chicago’s postal workers were handling about 1/6th of the nation’s mail volume.

Another trend of the period was the growth of smaller postal stations and sub-stations. Because of continued urban growth and geographically spreading populations within cities, these additional stations helped the Post Office Department better serve the people. Chicago, for instance, in 1893 had a main post office, 13 postal stations and 22 sub-stations. Just 20 years later, those numbers had grown to 52 stations and 306 sub-stations.

PORK BARREL POST OFFICES
During James Knox Taylor's tenure as Supervising Architect, Congress went on a "pork barrel" binge, spending extravagantly on post offices and other public buildings. Congressman Morris Sheppard of Texas was a pork barrel king. During one session he sponsored bills to buy sites and/or build post offices for constituents in the towns of Pittsburg, Jefferson, Cooper, Mount Pleasant, Dangerfield, Paris, Atlanta, Texarkana, Mount Vernon, and Clarksville. These lard-laden bills amounted to an appropriation of $910,000. Not to be outdone, Congressman Louis Hanna of North Dakota offered appropriation bills for postal buildings at Mandan, Jamestown, Dickinson, Williston, and Valley City for a price tag of $500,000. Not to be outdone, Leonidas Felix Livingston of Georgia introduced bills worth $150,000 each for post office projects at Fairbum, Conyers, Jonesboro, Decatur, Douglasville, Covington, and Monroe.

A major raid on the public treasury came in a midnight session in 1910, a feeding frenzy at the public trough. During that session over 900 separate building bills were introduced, amounting to $2.25 million, far too much for serious consideration. Conferees whittled down the projects by a third, and then lumped them together. The omnibus building bill, covering everything from the purchase of building sites to the erection of new buildings or the expansion of existing structures, and containing nearly 50 pages of projects, passed easily in the House. Twenty hours later, with $5 million more added by the Senate, the measure passed without major debate or dissenting vote. One member of Congress boasted that the omnibus legislation was not "pork barrel" politics, but rather "a masterpiece of geographical distribution." He had a point. Two hundred and ninety six Congressional districts out of 391 were represented in one fashion or another.

Unfortunately, the country could hardly afford the extravagance. The fact of the matter was that for many of these proposed government-owned buildings in small cities and towns, the costs of janitorial service and building maintenance alone could exceed the annual rent previously paid for being in a non government-owned building. There were other things to consider on the minus side. Because of such "pork barrel" bills, the Supervising Architect's office had a backlog of about two years' worth of work in 1910. It was impossible to take on additional projects, even when funded. And yet, hundreds of public building bills continued to be introduced. The snowballing effect grew to such proportions that by 1912 the House Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds voted to limit members to one "pet" project each.

BUILDINGS OF CLASS
It was clear to Treasury Secretary William McAdoo that spending limits and standardization were sorely needed. On June 29, 1915, he advised the Office of the Supervising Architect that it was to observe a strict policy when it came to "giving effect to authorizations for the construction, enlargement, extension and special repairs of public buildings under control of the Treasury Department." The key to McAdoo's position was that the designs for public buildings were to be in keeping with the types of structures already in the communities.

The amount authorized for such projects by Congress was not to be the driving force behind the type of structure that was constructed. "Effort should always be made to conserve rather than unnecessarily to expend appropriations," he told the nation’s chief architect; adding "This does not mean that savings are to be effected at the expense of space and facilities, or that the designs employed are to be stripped of ornamentation." Instead, McAdoo insisted that the buildings provided should be of adequate size, properly planned for the convenient transaction of public business, feature modern facilities, and be in keeping with the architectural designs and materials used within the communities in which they were to be placed.

To achieve this, McAdoo devised a general classification system that was to be observed for the foreseeable future. Four categories of construction were covered under this scheme, which would determine the size, style, materials, and embellishments to be used for a particular building. Each of the four categories was based upon the total annual receipts for the particular post office in question.

These four classifications included:

CLASS A
Definition: Buildings that include a Post Office of the first class with annual receipts of $80,000 or over; the site forming part of a city development plan or situated on an important thoroughfare of a great city; improvements on adjoining property reaching the higher valuation of metropolitan real estate.

Character of Building: Marble or granite facing; fireproof throughout; metal frames, sashes and doors; interior finish to include the finer grades of marble, ornamental bronze work, mahogany, etc. Public spaces to have monumental treatment, mural decorations; special interior lighting fixtures.

CLASS B
Definition: Buildings that include a Post Office of the first class with receipts from $60,000 to $80,000; valuation of adjoining property somewhat below the higher valuation of metropolitan real estate.

Character of Building: Limestone or sandstone facing; fireproof throughout; exterior frames and sash metal; interior frames, sash, and doors wood; interior finish to exclude the more expensive woods and marbles; ornamental metal to be used only where iron is suitable. Restricted ornament in public spaces.

CLASS C
Definition: Buildings that include a Post Office of the second class with receipts of $15,000 or over, and of the first class up to $60,000 receipts; valuation of surrounding property that of a second-class city.

Character of Building: Brick facing with stone or terra cotta trimmings; fireproof floors; non-fireproof roof-, frames, sashes and doors wood; interior finish to exclude the more expensive woods and marbles; the latter used only where sanitary conditions demand; public spaces restricted to very simple forms of ornament.

CLASS D
Definition: Building's that include a Post Office having annual receipts of less than $15,000; real estate values justifying only a limited investment for improvements.

Character of Building: Brick facing, little stone or terra cotta used; only first floor fireproof; stock sash, frames, doors, etc., where advisable; ordinary class of building such as any businessman would consider a reasonable investment in a small town.

In May 1917, the Treasury Department broadened its building categories to include the use of stone facings for buildings in communities where the post office had gross annual receipts of at least $45,000. A further condition, that the post office's receipts for the past 10 years had to show an increase of not less than 75-percent, also applied to this new category. America’s entrance into World War I reduced the likelihood that this amendment would be broadly implemented. The Treasury Secretary advised his supervising architect to take whatever steps were necessary to ensure that those responsible for building and supplying government facilities "exercise patriotic judgment and caution in their demands’ until prices returned to their prewar levels.

By 1923 Postmaster General Hubert Work wanted to get away from the practice of building common-sized offices. Work realized that many of these buildings designed by the Treasury Department for major urban business centers were totally inadequate almost as soon as they were completed. Obviously, business mail was about to enter an unprecedented period of growth. With this in mind, Work began to anticipate the growing pulse of mail marketing; he wanted to be ready, rather than merely playing catch-up. To a degree, postal automation was also beginning to play a part in Postmaster General Work’s plan to move more mail. Although the technology of the time was primitive, mechanical canceling machines, crude sorting devices, postage-meter machines, and conveyor systems were beginning to have an impact upon postal facilities.

BUILDING A WAY OUT OF DEPRESSION
The next serious building binge after the pre-World War I activity did not occur until the late 1920s with the passage in 1926 of another piece of omnibus building legislation that reached $700 million by the 1930s. Once again Congressional leaders and government officials gladly assumed the role of latter day Johnny Appleseeds, sprinkling post offices all over the countryside.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt knew the importance of a local post office to the community. These buildings were accessible representations of the federal government. The postal service's activities touched the individual and collective lives of the local residents, the social interests of the overall community, and the business concerns of every neighborhood. Roosevelt came to understand that that post office construction could play an important role in helping revitalize the nation during the Great Depression. When Roosevelt took office nearly one-third of the nation's work force was on relief. Beginning in the early 1930s, the nation embarked on a massive government-financed building binge, much of which was part of the national work relief program sponsored by the Public Works Administration to alleviate the effects of the Depression.

During the economic crisis, 40,000 new public buildings were constructed. More than 85,000 existing buildings were improved in Roosevelt’s efforts to get the country working again. The vast majority of these New Deal buildings were termed “Starved Classical” style post offices, an architectural form that matched the Roosevelt Administration’s propensity for simplicity and thrift.

Thrifty times required frugal fashions. The Starved Classical form was the ideal thin diet, one that featured symmetrical designs with classical proportions, but without the popular classical elements, such as bold porticos, columns, and pediments. With this style, utility and economy outweighed exterior opulence. The term was used by Louis Craig, Director of the Federal Architecture Project for the National Endowment of the Arts, in describing the modern architecture style that was derived from the classical, but stripped and simplified to provide "a gaunt, underfed, 'starved' classicism, denoted as much by white masonry and the rhythm of wall and window as by vestigial columns."

Several other important characteristics of this architectural style were described by Postal Service's Federal Preservation officer John Sorenson, when he observed:

Starved Classicism was the dominant mode of government construction during the 193os and it is a direct descendant of the Treasury Department's Supervising Architects earlier Beaux-Arts-inspired buildings. The facades and plans of these buildings remained symmetrical; the primary shift is in the ornament. Starved Classicism, in an effort to reduce costs and speed construction, eliminated or reduced architectural ornamentation to a minimum. The ornamentation that was used often owed a stylistic debt to the Art Deco of the 1930s.

Responsibility for these "starved" post offices principally goes to Louis A. Simon. Simon, an 1891 Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate, headed up the architectural section of the Supervising Architect's office throughout the tenure of James Wetmore from 1915 to 1933. He replaced Wetmore in 1933, and served as Supervising Architect until 1939. Known as a conservative designer, Simon oversaw the design and construction of the majority of the post offices projects carried out during the Starved-Classical period.

Many of the Starved-Classical post offices built between 1930 and 1942 look much the same on the outside. Their greatest differences are often concealed inside. Typically, the interiors of many such post offices were decorated with colorful lobby murals, giant works of art that were sponsored by the federal government.

Unlike the art created under the largest of the New Deal era art programs, the Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project created under the Emergency Relief Appropriations Act of 1935, the artworks created for post offices were not commissioned in order to provide financial relief to artists or to preserve their skills during the critical years of the Depression. Instead, most of the works in post offices were commissioned under the Treasury Department's Section of Painting and Sculpture, later designated as the Section of Fine Arts, which operated from 1934 to 1943. The Section’ goal was to provide murals and sculptures for newly constructed federal projects using appropriated funds that usually constituted about one percent of each project's budget. Artworks were usually awarded on the basis of national or regional competitions conducted in all 48 states, with the bigger prizes going to the highest ranking competitors. Runners-up generally received commissions for smaller post office projects.

During the nine years the program was in existence, approximately 1,200 murals and 300 sculptures were commissioned for post offices around the country. These Depression-era murals often harkened back to brighter days and nostalgic images. In the December 4, 1939 issue of Life magazine, the murals judged during the 1939 competition sponsored by the Fine Arts Section of the Federal Works Agency, which attracted 1,475 anonymous submissions, were described as "interesting not only in themselves but also as barometers by which the everyday art taste of rural America may be judged. Designed mostly for village post offices, they represent in most cases the collective taste of the citizens of the community, together with the individual taste of the artist." The magazine characterized the opinion of small-town Americans concerning such art by observing that "apparently rural Americans are artistic 'stay-at-homes' with a preference for paintings that reproduced experiences and scenes and parts of history with which they are familiar. In spirit, many of these sketches are local American epics."

This was the mission of the murals, to relate to the history and prideful moments of the locality, giving such significant periods or events artistic expression, while evoking positive emotions of accomplishment and purpose. Today, these murals and sculptures constitute a great national treasure. The buildings that house these works represent a valuable and important American asset, but an asset that is showing its age. Thankfully, today such older buildings are typically accorded the status they rightfully deserve. They are generally considered as vintage assets, ideal sites for historic preservation and tasteful redevelopment.

GROWING WITH THE NATION
Few new post offices were constructed during World War II. Instead, available manpower and materials were devoted to the war effort. Following the war, however, the Post Office Department embarked on another massive modernization program. This time something was different. During the post-World War II period, the government did not want to pay directly for the construction. Instead, the postal system utilized commercially leased spaces.

As part of its accelerated commercial leasing program, between January 1953 and August 1956, 1,200 new postal buildings were constructed by private industry and leased to the postal system. By mid-1956 "new style" offices were being completed at a rate of two a day. By 1960 more than 5,000 new post offices had been built under commercial leases without the requirement of huge sums of capital investment by the government. Many were long overdue. More than half of the nation’s post offices had been built during the 1930s or before. The larger of these were described as "mostly monumental in character and totally unsuited for [coping with the current] mail-handling problems."

In the case of the old mail handling facility at Seattle, Washington, the mail volume had grown to a point where much of the mail was being sorted outside the building irrespective of weather. A new mail handling facility, constructed in the 1950s, was said to be only one of many needed in other major cities. The following decade witnessed the completion of dozens of major mechanized post offices in many of America’s largest communities.

At that time the Post Office Department was estimating that roughly $2 billion was needed to rehabilitate the existing federally owned properties. Of this sum, the government figured that three quarters could be invested by private industry for buildings to be constructed to postal specifications and leased to the Post Office Department. According to the Post Office Department, such structures -- constructed predominantly of brick, structural metals, concrete, and glass – “are designed to harmonize with the architectural pattern of the communities in which they are built, and which they serve."

While the assessment represented the postal service's official opinion, in far too many instances the heavy-handed, modern styles imposed upon local communities either overpowered or understated the prevailing architectural flavor of the host communities. In such instances, all too often it became easy to pick out the post office simply because it visually did not fit in with the rest of the buildings in town.

In 1958, Eisenhower administration officials began to rethink these post office designs. Far too many of the early 1950s post offices looked exactly alike, not at all the structures that would harmonize with individual communities. The Post Office Department viewed standardization as a desirable characteristic, at least for the buildings’ interiors. The Department’s intent was to standardize the interiors in eight sizes, ranging from 1,000 to 12,000 square feet, while greatly enhancing the exterior styling.

The Department proposed 50 typical examples of exteriors that should be considered as a guide to investors planning to erect buildings for lease to the government. This was done for two reasons: First, to enable future buildings to fit compatibly within the architectural character of the sites, neighborhoods, and cities that had varying customs, climates and characteristics; second, to meet improved postal methods, equipment, and standards.

Design wise, this was a much-needed step, and there was much to do. In 1958 the postal service was projecting the need for 12,000 new post offices over the next three years. That year alone, construction had started on 605 projects. To date, this represented the largest number of new leased building starts in any one year in the history of the postal service. These buildings provided over 2 million square feet of floor space and, because they were constructed under a commercial leasing program, this eliminated in excess of $2 million in government-related construction costs.

Many of the large urban post office buildings constructed during this period are buildings where function overruled form. Architecturally, the mail-processing factories have little fanciful appeal. They are practical buildings of glass, concrete, and steel, which were located away from the centers of towns. Older buildings were not free of this modernization movement. Instead of being allowed to gracefully look their age, their interiors were absurdly made over with plastic, Formica, and buffed metals.