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U.S. Post Office

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1938, Louis A. Simon, Supervising Architect of the U.S. Treasury. 802 E. Leon St.

The one-story buff brick building is one of a number of similar post offices in the region from Simon’s office in the stripped classical mode. The central three bays of the five-bay facade are emphasized with limestone facing, creating a flat entrance frontispiece, and stone surrounds at the outer two windows. Federal stripped classicism here lacks most classical details, leaving only symmetry and careful proportions. The lobby contains the mural Off to Northern Markets (1939) by Joe De Young and sponsored by the Section of Fine Arts of the U.S. Treasury Department. Illustrating a cattle drive, the scene has a four-mule-team chuck wagon racing across the foreground, a remuda (the herd of cowboys’ backup horses) in the middle distance, and a huge herd of cattle strung across the horizon. California-based De Young, who worked on several Cecil B. De Mille films, created a wide-screen cinematic composition here. The sense of noise and dust is wonderfully evoked.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Gerald Moorhead et al.
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Data

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Citation

Gerald Moorhead et al., "U.S. Post Office", [Gatesville, Texas], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/TX-02-GH3.

Print Source

Buildings of Texas

Buildings of Texas: East, North Central, Panhandle and South Plains, and West, Gerald Moorhead and contributors. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2019, 260-260.

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