The United States Forest Service Building in Elkins, West Virginia was built between 1936 and 1938 as a Works Progress Administration project. The Neo-Classical Revival building is typical of public buildings from this time period and remains in use today. Significant in its own right, the structure is also unique in containing not one, but two New Deal murals. Both “Forest Service” and “Mining Village” were executed in tempera by Stevan Dohanos in 1939. The two works express quite different messages and their position across from each other in the lobby provokes reflective dialog on the contrast.
The Webster Springs Post Office was constructed from 1940 to 1941 and cost $85,000, far more than a typical Works Progress Administration (WPA) post office. The price was perhaps due to Webster Springs’ role as a central mail distribution center. In any case, the one-story brick building features Colonial Revival details and accents and is similar to other WPA post offices in West Virginia.
Marlinton’s New Deal post office was completed in 1937. As is typical of Works Progress Administration public buildings, the Marlinton Post Office architecturally emphasizes function over form with its blocky construction, flat roof, and lack of ornamentation. Two works of New Deal art are found inside the building. Both were painted by Edwin Dorsey Doniphan, a Washington D.C. based artist who primarily executed government commissions. Additionally, both paintings were completed in 1939 and are oil on canvas. The first painting is titled “Past Visions of the Future.” It depicts Calvin Sharp, a lifelong resident of Marlinton. Sharp looks out at the developing town with his two oxen, Pat and Star. The painting on the opposite wall is titled “Mill Point.” It depicts a mill near a relatively major road. One figure works on the mill side of the mural while another figure rides a horse on the road and leads a second animal. The mill depicted is a real location and still stands just outside of Marlinton. These two works exemplify the New Deal style of art, which focused on idyllic depictions of local progress and labor.
This historic post office was built in 1938 using Works Progress Administration (WPA) funding and labor. The one-story roughly square brick building is typical of WPA constructed public buildings. The post office also contains a mural entitled "Old Time Camp Meeting." The work depicts a local event of cultural, familial, and religious significance. The mural was painted in 1940 by Robert Franklin Gates as part of President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal Program. The piece is particularly unique as an egg tempera on canvas work, an uncommon medium for WPA art. Other murals by Gates can be found in post offices in two Maryland cities, Bethesda and Oakland.
The Fayetteville Post Office was constructed in 1938 using federal Treasury Department funds. The building is a simple rectangular structure made of brick. Large linteled windows define the front facade, which features a particularly expansive glass entry portal. A flat roof contributes to the inherent blockiness of the structure. Functionality, rather than aesthetics, was clearly the architectural goal of this Works Progress Administration (WPA) building. Despite the relative austerity of the exterior, the interior of the post office is adorned with a large oil on canvas mural by Nixford Baldwin. Baldwin was a Massachusetts based artist known for his inspiring painted and sculpted works. Though he completed several WPA commissions, “The Miners” in Fayetteville is his most famous work. The piece depicts a variety of scenes of life in a mining camp. On the left, men work in mines to extract coal and deliver it to the surface. On the right, a parent and their child walk through a busy industrial site. The color palette, well-outlined nature of the figures, and emphasis on labor suggests that Baldwin was strongly influenced by Mexican Muralism in creating this piece. Like most WPA sponsored works, the piece is calm and non-confrontational. The hardships found in coal towns are avoided, but so too is glorification of the work occurring eschewed.
The Oak Hill Post Office was constructed using treasury funding in 1936. It was one of the first publicly funded post offices in West Virginia as part of the New Deal. Many of the building’s architectural features, such as brick construction, a gabled roof, and elevated porch are common features of Works Progress Administration buildings. However, the Oak Hill Post Office also features a small cupola in the center of the roof, which helps keep the building’s profile from becoming lost in the grove of trees that surround it. On the interior of the Oak Hill Post Office is a terra cotta bas relief sculpted by Henri Crenier in 1938. Crenier was a French born artist who worked primarily in the United States. Many of his commissions were placed in or near civic buildings, though this work in Oak Hill appears to be the artist’s only WPA piece. The piece is titled “The Colonial Mail Rider,” though some sources record the name as “The Colonel Mail Rider.” The former title appears more apt, as the relief appears to depict a family sitting on the ground while a mail rider on a leaping horse gestures to them. Before the days of a centralized mail system, mail riders frequently undertook dangerous multi-week trips in order to deliver mail to the furthest reaches of colonial settlement. In this way, Crenier’s piece celebrates the history and dedication of the United States Postal Service’s forebears.
The Mount Hope Post Office was built in 1940 to replace an older 1872 building. Works Progress Administration funds paid for the one-story red brick Colonial Revival Structure. The building was designed by Louis A. Simon and Neal A. Melick, Supervising Architect and Engineer for the United States Treasury Department, respectively. In addition to being a significant unmodified WPA building, the post office also contains the mural Mining, which was painted by Michael Lenson. Lenson was a famous WPA muralist and administrator who created a number of works around the United States. Just twenty years after the piece was completed, Mining was recognized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum when the institution acquired a preparatory study for the mural. The study was also included in a 2019-2020 Whitney Museum of Art exhibition titled “La Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 1925-1945.” The mural can still be seen in situ in the Mount Hope Post Office.
The Logan Post Office was begun in 1936 and finished in 1937. Despite not being in a major metropolitan area, this building is on the grander side of Works Progress Administration (WPA) post office buildings in West Virginia. The gabled roof, rectangular shape, and raised front porch all recall the grand classical forms of Greece and Rome. However, the building is primarily brick and unornamented. In particular, the bare pediment, normally a place reserved for copious detailing and ornamentation, makes a marked statement that form is subsumed by function. The overall impression is powerful but reserved.The neo-classical motifs of the Logan Post Office architecture are maintained on the interior of the building, where a large sculpture by Gleb W. Derujinsky is installed. Derujinsky was a Russian-born artist who emigrated to the United States to avoid the Russian Revolution of 1919. In the 1920s, he created a number of plaster busts of prominent political figures, including Theodore Roosevelt. As the New Deal was the brainchild of Roosevelt, it is likely that Derujinsky’s commission for the Logan Post Office was tied to his personal connections and previous work. The sculpture in Logan is dated 1940 and titled, “The Letter.” The work is roughly four feet wide by six feet tall and is carved from a single piece of wood. The piece depicts a woman holding a quill and paper. She is bare-chested with a flowing robe around her lower torso and legs. Her feet dangle as if she is floating in air. The figure is clearly classical in style and resembles ancient depictions of muses and goddesses. These parallels along with the name of the work suggest that the woman is an allegorical figure for the postal service and mail delivery.
The Kenova Post Office was completed by Works Progress Administration (WPA) workers in 1939. The building is a simple one-story rectangle with moderately sized windows and little ornamentation besides a seal on the lintel and words on the cornice reading “United States Post Office Kenova West Virginia.” In contrast to many WPA erected buildings, the Kenova Post Office has white walls, rather than exhibiting the more typical red brick. The interior of the federal building includes a set of carved wooden reliefs created by Albino Cavallito. Cavallito was a prominent three-dimensional artist who studied at the Trenton School of Industrial Art, the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design, and the Fontainebleau School of Fine Art. The artist was awarded a gold medal for sculpture by the Allied Artists of America in 1945. Cavallito’s work at the Kenova Post Office was created near the height of his career. The central piece is of a shirtless male figure standing in a relaxed but confident manner with a large sledge at his side. The emblematic worker is surrounded by four smaller vignette panels. The panels likely represent various economies in which workers were employed. From bottom left clockwise, one interpretation of the panels could be that they stand for agriculture, timber, mining, and industry. Taken as a whole, the work venerates the labor and contributions of the working class in the state.
The history of the post office in St. Albans stretches back to 1817. In this year, Benjamin Coal began receiving back compensation for post delivery in Kanawha County. Coal initially based his operations out of a local establishment called Wilson’s Tavern, though the unofficial post office moved through a number of other taverns, pharmacies, and storefronts in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. An official postal route was established in 1903 with free rural delivery expanding it in 1909. The location moved twice more, to the First National Bank Building and the Loyal Order of Moose lodge in 1910 and 1926, respectively.
The Ripley Post Office was constructed in 1940, making it a rather late Works Progress Administration (WPA) structure. In many ways, the building resembles other WPA post offices through the Colonial Revival style, gabled roof, and rectangular brick construction. However, this building also has several notable differences. The entrance to the building is on the long side of the building, which in itself is not strange, but becomes strange when the gabled roof is taken into consideration. It was more common for the entrance to be on the short side of gabled roof post office buildings. Perhaps this design choice was necessitated by the layout of the structure; there are two chimneys, one on each end of the building. These chimneys are also atypical of WPA post offices which typically feature no elements piercing the roof. A final divergent feature of the Ripley Post Office is a dentilled cornice at the edge of the roof when a plain unornamented cornice is standard.The interior of the Ripley Post Office features a wooden sculpture by Joseph Servas. The bas relief was installed in 1942 and measures roughly four feet by four feet. Little information is available about the artist or this work, which is titled “The Pride of Jackson County.” It depicts a farmer petting a cow. In the background is a large wooden structure of unknown use. The title and subject of the piece is perhaps an homage to Jackson County’s agrarian past.
The Spencer Post Office is a typical Works Progress Administration (WPA) structure. Completed in 1936, the building is single-story, roughly square, and made with brick. The Spencer Post Office differentiates itself from other WPA post office buildings in West Virginia through its height, which is closer to a story and a half. The lobby of the building features a plaster of Paris relief created by Vicken von Post Totten. Post Totten was a Swedish artist famous for her sculptures and reliefs. She created WPA patronized works that are installed in public buildings throughout the United States. The piece in Spencer, titled “Pastoral of Spencer,” was completed and installed in 1938. Through bas relief, the work depicts cows grazing in a meadow. This was a historically common theme in pastoral images, though Post Totten modernized the composition slightly through the inclusion of an electric tower in the background.
The St. Mary’s Post Office was completed in 1937 as a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project. Little else is known about construction of the building. The style of the building mirrors other WPA projects through its simple one-story brick elevation. A wooden cupola or belvedere at the peak of the building helps provide some degree of vertical prominence. In the lobby of the post office is an oil on canvas mural titled “St. Mary’s and the Industries of the Region.” The work was created by Alexander B. Clayton, a frequent federal artist who primarily created portraits, in 1939. The piece includes depictions of several important industries to the town of St. Mary’s. On the left, two coal miners work to extract the fuel in a stereotypical mineshaft. Moving to the right, a woman herds sheep near baskets overflowing with fresh produce grown locally. A horse plowing a field further on the right indicates from where these items might have come. In the background is a river, likely the Kanawha River. This feature of the landscape was crucial for moving items produced near St. Mary’s to larger markets.
Little information exists about this Works Progress Administration (WPA) post office, with even less information available regarding the mural it contains titled “Visions of the Development of Salem.” A post office was established in Salem as early as 1831, though without a permanent location. In its first century of operation, the postal base of operations in Salem could be found in a tavern, railroad station, and hardware store. This building was the first permanent home for the service and was completed in 1940. The structure is typical of WPA architecture and is fairly described by the 1980 Salem Historic District National Register form as “severe.”[1] “Visions of the Development of Salem” can be found in the lobby of the building. Painted using oil on canvas in 1942, artist Berni Glasgow included a wide variety of figures. These include allegorical figures representing the glass factories, oil and gas refineries, and farms that composed the backbone of Salem’s economy. Other figures include a student, representing Salem’s educational activities, and a portrait of G.C. Ross, the town’s first postmaster. The style of the image is more classically European than other WPA works tended to be; it was more typical to see Art Deco or Mexican Muralism influences in these works. The work is optimistic and captures Salem’s success while remaining hopeful for the future.
The Mannington Post Office was completed in 1939 and is highly typical of New Deal post offices in West Virginia. The simple brick exterior is largely unornamented, but the interior contains an oil on canvas mural by Richard Zoellner. Zoellner was a prolific Works Progress Administration artist who painted at least six post office murals. The work at the Mannington Post Office was completed in 1942 and titled “Landscape at Frogtown.” The work depicts a small town with a road on the left and a railway on the right. A few houses and large electric poles are scattered throughout the piece, which includes no human figures. The work might depict Frogtown, West Virginia, in southern Logan County, or Frogtown, Pennsylvania, in the central-western portion of the state. Both towns are candidates as inspiration for the work, as Zoellner grew up in Ohio and created works throughout West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
The Cove Station Post Office was erected in 1937. Similar to many other Works Progress Administration (WPA) post offices in West Virginia, this building is a simple one-story rectangular brick structure that prioritizes functionality over aesthetics. In the lobby is a mural by Charles Chapman titled, “Captain Bilderbook’s and John Schoolcraft’s Expedition from Holiday’s Cove to For Wheeling, 1777.” The historical event depicted is explained by text at the bottom of the piece which reads, “In 1777, John Schoolcraft notified Captain Bilderbook at Holiday’s Cove that the Wyandottes and Mingoes [Native American groups] were gathering for a raid on Wheeling. Together, they led a party of settlers to the rescue which under cover of a dense fog arrived at the fort in time to drive off the attack.”[1] Chapman’s rendering of this scene occurs before the battle, as the settlers travel to Fort Wheeling. The Cove Station Post Office was initially the postal base for Holiday’s (sometimes spelled Holliday’s) Cove. In 1947, Holiday’s Cove merged with Marland Heights and Weirton Heights to become the city of Weirton. The Weirton Post Office also possessed a New Deal work of art. Vincent Glinsky created a cast stone plate titled “Pony Express and Rural Delivery.” The work was unfortunately lost at some point after the Weirton Post Office merged with the Cove Station Post Office.
This Tour is a Thematic Tour or Heritage Trail.
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Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and Works Progress Administration Projects in the 1930s and 40s included the construction of sixteen post offices throughout West Virginia. In addition to the buildings themselves, the program also provided funding for public art to grace the lobbies of these buildings. This tour includes all sixteen post offices along with their accompanying artworks.
