Englewood Post Office

The 1937 Englewood Post Office is eligible for listing on the National Register for its local significance in the area of Politics / Government and Community Planning and Development. The Englewood Post Office was the only federal building constructed in the city under President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and the first federal building to be constructed in the city. Extensive lobbying by the city and the Chamber of Commerce, the expansion of the Denver metropolitan area, and an increase in nationwide New Deal construction projects to stimulate the economy resulted in the authorization of funds to purchase the site and construct the Post Office. The Post Office's location spurred the growth of the small rural community of Englewood northward, where it would meet the southernmost development of Denver and set the stage for the town's transition into a major post-World War Il metropolitan suburb.

The 1937 Englewood Post Office is eligible for listing on the National Register for its local significance in the area of Architecture for its New Deal design by the Office of the Supervising Architect under Louis A. Simon. Though modest by many standards, the Englewood Post Office was one of the most architecturally sophisticated buildings in the city when it was built. Designed in a stripped Colonial Revival style, the building displays the emerging modernism of the time overlaid with modest details that refer to the architecture of the Colonial period and, by extension, the inception of the nation and the federal government. The Englewood Post Office mural by Boardman Robinson was commissioned by the U.S. Treasury Department's Section of Fine Arts Program as part of a New Deal initiative to incorporate art in federal buildings, including post offices, throughout the country.

The 1937 Englewood Post Office is eligible for listing on the National Register for its national significance under Criterion C in the area of Art for its 1940 mural by important American artist Boardman Robinson. Robinson played a prominent role in the national development of the American mural movement of the 1930s; in the creation of important New Deal murals in Washington D.C.; and, as Art Director of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, in the creation of a mural-painting curriculum that resulted, between 1936 to 1940, in the award of forty federal mural commissions to his students and twenty to members of his teaching staff. The mural is one of only three major murals by Boardman Robinson to survive intact in its original location; it is one of only two examples of Robinson's work associated with the U.S. Treasury Department's Section of Fine Arts Program; it is Robinson's only United States Post Office mural, and it has the distinction as the sole major Robinson mural to reflect the impact of Colorado regionalism on his stylistic evolution.