United States Post Office

Construction of this classically derived post office, by Greensburg architect Charles Sorber, coincided with President Franklin D. Roosevelt's massive government-financed building effort in which more than forty thousand new public buildings were built across the country. In a style often described as “starved classical”—in reference to their economical design and minimal detailing—the lean and hungry look suits this buff brick and sandstone-trimmed post office. Its recessed entrance is flanked by two-story windows and guarded by a colonnade of six Greek Doric columns. To remind patrons of pre–Great Depression events, heroic murals at either end of the long rectangular lobby depict local glassmaking and the battle of Bushy Run. The murals were mandated by the Treasury Department of the 1930s that earmarked 1 percent of a building's cost for public artwork. Carnegie Institute of Technology–trained muralist T. Frank Olson of Pittsburgh was chosen after a competition. Unfortunately, he died before the murals could be executed, but his colleagues Robert L. Lepper and Alexander J. Kostellow completed the painting and gave the fee to Olson's widow.