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Yerington Post Office

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1939, Louis A. Simon. 28 N. Main St.
  • Yerington Post Office (Julie Nicoletta)

The post office, a symmetrical rectangular box, continues to anchor downtown Yerington. Its PWA Moderne, or “starved classical,” design, typical of federal buildings of the late 1930s, is nearly identical to that of Tonopah's post office. Fluted Doric columns support an entablature surmounted by a stylized eagle in bas-relief, whose open wings just fit inside the arch. The broad hipped roof rises above a cornice with dentils.

The post office was the first federal presence here, as was the case in other small towns in the state. The Yerington building follows one of nearly a dozen standardized plans produced by the Office of the Supervising Architect of the U.S. Department of the Treasury. The post office contains one of three federally funded Depression-era murals in Nevada, located in the lobby above the postmaster's door. Painted in 1941 by Adolph Gottlieb (1903–1974), who later became known for his Abstract Expressionist works, Homestead on the Plain depicts a small house to one side and, in the center, an old car, a windmill, and a rickety shack, all dwarfed by the jagged mountains of the eastern Sierra. Like the Lovelock and Winnemucca post office murals, this one was created under the auspices of the Treasury Department's Section of Fine Arts, which existed from 1934 to 1943.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Julie Nicoletta
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Data

What's Nearby

Main Street
Lyon County Courthouse
Yerington Cultural Center (Yerington Grammar School No. 9)

Citation

Julie Nicoletta, "Yerington Post Office", [Yerington, Nevada], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/NV-01-NW101.

Print Source

Buildings of Nevada, Julie Nicoletta. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000, 123-124.

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