U.S. Post Office
a.k.a. Downtown Station;Old Main Post Office
219 Mills Ave., El Paso, TXEl Paso's United States Post Office of 1916 is one of the most noteworthy Beaux Arts buildings in far West Texas. Reminiscent, on a smaller scale, of the early 20th- century federal buildings in Washington, D.C., the Post Office's dignified classical detailing and academic proportions make it a strong visual symbol of the U.S. government in this remote border city. Today, it still retains its visual prominence, integrity, and historic role in downtown El Paso.
According to an El Paso Herald-Post article (November 30, 1945), Indians were still attacking the mail carriers of the Butterfield Stage Coach six years after the first El Paso post office was established in 1852, which is to have been an adobe hut near the stage station. The post office was moved three times in the 19th century until it was moved, about 1900, to the Federal Building (since demolished) at Mills and Oregon streets.
The turn of the century was a boom period for El Paso. Between 1900 and 1910, the population of the city doubled, and by 1920 was to double again to 77,000. Accordingly, in 1911, Congressman W.R. Smith of the 16th District requested that $350,000 be appropriated for the construction of a new post office in El Paso. In 1916 land was acquired for the location of the new post office, at Mills and Stanton streets, the site of the Old Pacific Hotel. Construction of the new post office building began that same year. Architecturally, the new structure was to be of some significance to El Paso and the region. While the Prairie- and Mission-style buildings of Henry Trost are perhaps the best-known turn-of-the-century structures in the city, there was also a substantial amount of Beaux Arts construction, and most was of a pleasant and decidedly unacademic mode. The construction of the new United States Post Office, however, brought formal Beaux Arts classicism to far West Texas.
The design of the post office was provided by the office of the Supervising Architect of the Department of the Treasury. The basic formula was not unlike others of its ilk: a central portico in antis with offices to the sides, a main lobby at the center, and a mail room to the back. This standardized plan was used in numerous large and small post offices throughout the country from about 1910 through World War II. The El Paso Post Office, however, was much more imposing than most of its contemporaries in Texas and was one of the earliest and most noteworthy Beaux Arts structures in West Texas. The giant-order Ionic portico, rusticated stone exterior, and high, domed lobby create the ambiance of formality that reflects, on a smaller scale, such great Washington public buildings of the period as the Library of Congress or the Supreme Court building.
In recent decades, the United States Post Office of 1916 has been replaced as the main post office of El Paso, and is now in an area of high-rise construction. Yet it remains important to the community, for the suburban location of the new Main Post Office encourages the continued utilization of the 1916 building. massive scale and the low profile of the nominated property still make it a visual landmark in the city of El Paso.
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Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1984.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.