Mineola Post Office

Duane's take

Here's my take on what the official marker has to say about the Mineola Post Office, over there in Wood County. Now settle in, because this one's got more layers than you might expect from a building that just sorts your mail. Postal service in Mineola goes back to 1873, when somebody decided a local drugstore was close enough to a proper post office.

Unofficial, they called it. Which, if you think about it, is either very Texas or very creative bookkeeping, one of the two. That arrangement held until 1875, when an actual U.S. post office was officially granted for the area.

Progress had arrived, stamped and certified. Then came 1937, and with it this building. That was a time when public works projects were putting up federal buildings all across the country, and Mineola got one of them.

The structure they raised is what folks call a Moderne design, and it's a fine example of the style. Symmetrical facade. Simplified entablature.

Horizontal lines running clean and deliberate, the whole thing balanced like a well-told sentence. Depression-era, practical, and quietly handsome. But here's where the story gets interesting.

When this post office first opened, it came with a mural. Not just any mural, but a Works Progress Administration piece by a California artist named Bernard Zakheim. The title alone is worth savoring: 'The Horse and Buggy Give Way to Modern Methods of Mail Transportation.' Now that is a title with opinions in it.

Zakheim put that on the wall, and there it stayed, until renovations came around in 1972 and the mural was deemed beyond repair. Gone. A California artist's vision of Texas progress, and it didn't make it to see another decade.

The building kept going, though. Kept sorting, kept stamping, kept serving as an official U.S. post office all the way until 1998. That's a long run for a building the marker calls an excellent example of its kind, and excellent examples have a way of outlasting the functions they were built for.

The horse and buggy gave way. Modern methods gave way too, eventually. The building's still standing.

What the marker says

Postal service in Mineola dates to 1873, when an "unofficial" post office opened in a local drugstore. The first U. S. post office in the area was granted in 1875. This building was constructed in 1937, at a time when numerous public works projects included such federal buildings. It originally included a Works Progress Administration mural, "The Horse and Buggy Give Way to Modern Methods of Mail Transportation" by California artist Bernard Zakheim, which was deemed beyond repair during renovations in 1972. The Mineola Post Office building is an excellent example of a Depression-era postal facility. It exhibits the standard plan design of many Moderne post offices of the time, including symmetrical facade, simplified entablature and horizontal lines. It was an official U. S. post office until 1998. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1999