“It is said to be one of the handsomest buildings at the cost ever erected by the United States government.”
That same building is now long gone and the construction site of a new development in downtown Winona, Minnesota. In October 1891, the Daily Republican published this quote in an article on the dedication of the town’s new post office. Fifty-nine years later, this admiration turned to disgust when the newspaper advocated to destroy the building in hopes of a new one in its place. Winona has had conflicting opinions on historic preservation throughout its history. Examples include the Opera House (turned State Theater), the old Jefferson school, and the Winona General Hospital; all of which were replaced in the name of modernism and the growth of Winona. Non-native citizens of Winona might not know about these places but I assume similar situations have occurred in their hometowns. The tension between advancement and preservation is most acutely demonstrated in the ornate whitewater stone post office which was razed and replaced in the early 1960s. I first heard about this topic when my grandmother mentioned how disgusted she was when the “old post office” was demolished. Her statement was met with my immediate confusion. Like many other Winonans, I had no idea Winona had a post office different than the one standing today. With further research, I uncovered that my grandmother was indeed correct; that a post office of much more beauty and historical value stood and was replaced by the plate glass and brown brick structure of today. Gray Brechin of The Guardian says this in his article, “The fading genius of the US post office,” “The federal government once designed its post offices to elevate and inspire the public whose assets it is now selling.” It seems to me that Brechin’s comments are pertinent to Winona circa 1962. But before the new one could be recognized, the old one had to be built and taken down.
The complicated path to a new post office began in 1885 when Minnesota politicians secured $100,000 for the construction of a new federal building in Winona. The streets of Fourth and Main in downtown Winona were chosen as the site for the “grandest building possible.” There was a two-year delay in progress due to indecisiveness in selecting an architect. Will Freret was finally chosen to lead the process and sent in the first set of plans in 1887. The citizens felt the proposal for a 48-by-60 building was grossly underwhelming and called for a larger structure. Progress was again delayed by request of the people and an additional $50,000 was added to the budget. Another two years later, new supervising architect, James H. Windrim, created revised plans for a bigger building. With the Secretary of the Treasury and the public’s approval, the proposal was agreed upon and another $150,000 was added to the project. Construction started on April 25th, 1890. With this act, Winona would become the third town in Minnesota to have a freestanding post office.
Winonans were very involved in the building and had a lot of influence on the decision-making of the project. An incident occurred when the prominent citizens of Winona suspected the selection of, “an inferior variety of local stone for the exterior.” Windrim immediately changed the stone. Other changes were made by the objection of Winona’s citizens: brick sidewalks around the building turned to limestone and wood stairways turned to iron. Some of these intricate details belonged to a style of architecture called, “Richardson Romanesque.”
Charles G. Maybury, the town architect, designed the courthouse and was the superintendent architect of the post office. In his designs, he used the styles of H.H Richardson, a prominent American architect, who has designed buildings all across the U.S. His style included, “thick and dramatic stone walls,” and a “heavy use of arches.” This ornate and extravagant form of design was exactly what the leaders of Winona wanted for their public realm as they felt “Winona was a growing city with a great future.” The post office was built at a total cost of $103,000 or roughly $12.7 to $20.8 million in today’s dollars. The project was completed and dedicated on October 22, 1891.
The exterior of the newly-finished building can be compared to the Winona County Courthouse, which was completed in 1889. Charles G. Maybury, who was also was the designer of the courthouse. He implemented the Richardson style into this design. The building consisted of, “walls of solid brick and stone,” “french glass windows,” and “Cleveland blue sandstone steps.” Each main room in the building also had “16-foot ceilings,” and a “fireplace with wood mantels and tile.” The building became the first Minnesota courthouse to be put on the National Register of historic places in 1970. $1.1 million bonds were approved for a remodeling of the building. In the remodeling, three floors turned into five and the interior was cleaned and retained; the total cost came to $2 million. In 2000, a ceiling collapsed and water pipes broke causing major damage to the building. Court operations had to be held in the old middle school for 3 years and a total of $7.1 million dollars was spent restoring the establishment. The courthouse can be seen as the sister of the old post office, as they had similar designs. But it can also be seen as a survivor of the postmodern movement in architecture. I use the story of the courthouse as a testament to how difficult historic preservation can be but the value of the building is unmistakable as a structure of this significance could not be reproduced today.
The post office contained an 80-foot-long lobby, 400 letter boxes, a courtroom with a 23-foot ceiling on the second floor, offices on the third floor, and an observation deck. Above the doors to the lobby, a winged wheel and an eagle were etched into the stone. The winged wheel represented “present rapid flight of the United States miles across the country.” Also, an eagle, surrounded “by a ship and lighthouse and a train of cars coming out of a tunnel,” represented commerce. According to the newspapers of the time, around 4,000 people attended the dedication. Many proud newspapers published front-page stories on Winona’s grand, shining federal building. The Daily Herald called the structure, “imposing in appearance and beautiful in architecture.” Although some of these newspapers gushed about the construction, the attitudes of Winonans dramatically changed after a series of events in the early 1960s.
The Winona post office remained viable until a controversy began around the post office. Due to being, “inspired by Sputnik, the atom and the Edsel,” some of Winona’s leaders started to opine that change was necessary to keep their town relevant. A person representative of this attitude was a banker named, Sylvester J. Kryzsko. He believed that the post office was in need of an upgrade and shared his concerns with the fellow chamber of commerce members at the Hotel Winona. They agreed to “attack Washington’s planned $100,000 upgrade of the post office” and proposed a new location in central park. The citizens of Winona either shared in Kryzco’s anxieties or opposed them outright. One of his opposers was a physician in town named, Lewis I. Younger. Younger was also on the Chamber of Commerce and wrote many open letters and letters to the editor exclaiming his opinion to preserve the central park and existing post office. On a visit to the Winona County Historical Society archives, I was able to read some of the pieces Kryszco and Younger sent back and forth to the newspapers. The first sent by Younger, published July 15, 1963, mentioned the cutting down of all the trees in central park, asking, “[c]an man build trees? And [a]re we that hard up for tax money here in Winona to spoil dedicated property?” Kryzco replied in defense with a letter stating, “we have thousands and thousands of parks and everyone has an automobile to get to them.” Kryzsko even went so far as to call the post office “an architectural monstrosity” and a “hazard.” In opposition, the “Committee to Save Central Park” was created. They put forth advertisements in the paper, some of which were titled, “Central Park is Yours ACT NOW to save this beauty spot.” Supporters of the movement included prominent Winonans; such as Reverend Edward Fitzgerald, the heiress Gretchen Lamberton, and Younger.
With all the political controversy surrounding the Winona Post office, the General Services Administration was involved in the decision to demolish the old building. At first, they advocated for a remodeling of the old post office but eventually made the final decision to have the old post office demolished and a new one built. The General Services Administration (GSA) was established in 1949 “to help manage and support the basic functioning of federal agencies.” In a final attempt to save the park, the Committee to Save Central Park stapled a copy of a Reader´s Digest article called “Good-By to Our Public Parks” on every tree that was going to be cut down. The committee´s efforts fell short and ground broke on the new post office on September 25th, 1962. The GSA was Winona’s final defense against the destruction of the post office and they decided to be on the wrong side of Winona’s history. The old post office was demolished in October of 1963.
This story brings up an important argument about historic preservation in towns such as Winona. The National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 was enacted just three years after the old post office was razed. According to the GSA, the purpose was that “each federal agency must consider public views and concerns about historic preservation issues when making final project decisions.” The GSA themselves also enacted a “Historic Preservation Program.” Their website lists one of their goals as to “preserve, restore. rehabilitate, and maintain federally owned sites, structures and objects of historical, architectural or archeological significance” among other things. Although they preach preservation today, the GSA made the final decision to build a new post office and reduce central park in size and beauty to make way for a new, modern post office. So, unfortunately, the 1950s and 60s were a time when people craved change and therefore the old post office was demolished in the name of practicality and simplicity.
You might be asking yourself, why should I care, in 2019, about an old post office building? While it may seem insignificant, historic preservation is always relevant because it represents our collective past that of which shapes our culture and historical brand here in Winona. What if the Pantheon in Rome had been rebuilt because the plumbing was out of date? Or the Empire State Building in New York because it caused congested traffic? Imagine if the Eiffel Tower in Paris because it was considered an architectural monstrosity at the time? Our razed post office exists on a much smaller scale than the previously mentioned architectural masterpieces. But just as the world would change without them, Winona changed when they wrecked down the post office.
Who’s to say whether the present post office will be considered a historic building in the future? I can only say that Winona lost a bit of its charm when the wrecking ball hit the side of the old post office. In its place now stands the Winona Government Center. And across from that building is Winona’s recent attempts at downtown construction, the “Main Square Community Development.” It will contain a new Montessori school, a restaurant with outdoor seating, and apartments. I wish I would be able to see the old, grandiose post office on Fourth and Main resting in harmony with the Main Square Development today. Instead, I have to venture to the Winona County Historical Society to read about the building in yellowing newspapers.
*all quotes without links attached can be found at the Winona County Historical Society archives under the file, “old post office”.
