US Post Office-Valley City

The Valley City Post Office is significant under Criteria A and C on a state and local level as one of a small group of 20 extant federally-built post offices in North Dakota constructed between 1900-1940. Under Criterion A, this post office is associated with various federal policies in post office funding, design, and method of construction in the early 20th century. Under Criterion C, this facility shares the distinctive characteristics of federally-funded post offices as a property type built in North Dakota before the Second World War. The major areas of significance are Politics/Government, Architecture, Economics, and Community Planning. The Valley City Post Office is eligible on a state and local level for architectural significance. This design for a federal building is unique in North Dakota. Locally, it is the most imposing structure in Valley City, and an excellent example of the Classical Revival design in the spirit of James Knox Taylor, even though Taylor's tenure as supervising architect ended in 1912.

The Valley City Post Office building was designed in Classical Revival style with a symmetrical facade dominated by a slightly projecting portico and ten giant order Doric limestone columns supporting a classical entablature with dentilled molding. The windows are one over one double-hung, but the original blueprints indicate that the building was designed with small cross-muntin classical window panes. The original wood and glass entry doors have been replaced with anodized aluminum and glass ones. Each window or door bay between the front columns has a large (3' X 5') transom area, each of which has been blanked off with material on the inside. This alteration mars the appearance of the building, but not its over-all integrity of design. The dentilled limestone cornice runs around to the rear of the building and continues undentilled to the north facade. Large windows at the rear of the structure appear to be original with large 6 over 6 panes and transoms divided into three lights by vertical muntins. A small brick mailing dock and metal canopy are recent additions to the structure.

The interior of the building has been altered around the lock boxes in the lobby, with the replacement of the original lobby vestibule by a new aluminum and glass vestibule, and by the division of the lobby by an aluminum and glass partition into a secured portion on the east and lock boxes on the west. Fluorescent lights have replaced the original fixtures throughout. The lobby has been extensively changed, but enough of the original fabric remains to indicate its original appearance.

This facility was designed under James Wet more in 1915, when post office design was starting to be standardized. An indication that this post office was built at the very beginning of standardization is hinted at in the local paper (The Evening Times-Record [subsequently ETR], 7/28/13, p. 1). The Valley City Post Office, completed in 1917, does not, however, appear to be built from the standardized plans which were instituted by Treasury Secretary William McAdoo in 1915. By contrast, the Dickinson facility, completed in 1918, does appear to reflect the practices of the period of standardization. The Valley City structure was one of the last designs of its kind, and harks back to an earlier era when federal buildings were monolithic, imposing, costly, and built according to Beaux Arts principles of massing. The Evening Times-Record noted, "This particular building is much more pretentious than most of the federal buildings that are being erected throughout the west when the size of the cities are taken into consideration (8/19/16, p. 1).

The Valley City Post Office is locally significant as the best example of the federal Classical Revival style in the city. The classically designed Barnes County Courthouse has been ruined with glass brick and window infill. The public library is a Carnegie-type structure with Greek elements, and a Classical Revival turn-of-the-century design. The new city hall is a plain brick, severe-looking, one-story functional building with no artistic merit.

According to the Post Office Real Estate Division records in Chicago, the Valley City post office is the oldest remaining post office building built specifically for that purpose in North Dakota which is still owned and operated by the Postal Service.

On March 3, 1913, Congress passed an act authorizing the construction of a federal building in Valley City whose cost could not exceed $75,000. The 62nd Congress appropriated money for three federal buildings in North Dakota: Dickinson, Valley City, and Jamestown. Valley City and Jamestown got $75,000; Dickinson got $90,000 because it was to house a U.S. Land Office in addition to the postal operations (The Dickinson Press, 10/27/16, p. 1). Of the three buildings, Valley City's was the first to be completed, Dickinson's was completed a year later, and Jamestown's was not built until 1929. The actual cost of the Valley City building alone was $69,000 - the low bid, submitted by William O'Neill and Son, Co. of Faribault, Minnesota (The Evening Times-Record, 4/4/16, p. 1).

Historically, there is no indication that the post office building occasioned unusual activity in Valley City. The local newspaper does not mention how many local workers were hired during construction, except to note that five drivers and teams were hired for the excavation (The Evening Times-Record, 5/5/16, p. 1). The post office site did not affect development of the commercial area of the city. The Valley City Commercial Club was active in lobbying for the post office and even more for carriers before the building was put up (The Evening Times-Record, 1/1/12, p. 1). Congressman George M. Young was active in following the progress of the acquisition and construction of the building as well as the appropriation for the facility. The local paper noted that the cornerstone was laid without ceremony (The Evening Times-Record, 8/8/16, p. 1). When the building was completed, the basement offices were used as recruiting offices for the Navy, and for the local Red Cross (The Evening Times-Record, 4/21/17, p. 1; 7/7/17, p. 1). The post office facility was built during the Second Dakota Boom.

The Valley City Post Office has statewide architectural significance as the oldest example of a post office facility still owned by the post office and the only example in North Dakota of a federal facility in the monolithic Classical Revival style. It is architecturally a transitional building, which reflects the period when the Treasury Department's architecture office was changing from individual designs to more standardized, cost-effective designs.