National Register of Historic Places
United States Post Office and Court House
Columbia, Maury County, Tennessee
The record
- Listed
- September 14, 2018
- Type
- Building
- Address
- 815 S Garden St., Columbia
- County
- Maury
- State
- Tennessee
- Coordinates
- 35.61389, -87.03522
- Reference number
- 100002938
Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.
David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesUSGS Historical Topographic Map CollectionDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesBarry Lawrence Ruderman Map Collection, Stanford Libraries
The story
Written by AI from this property's National Register nomination and the record above; every sentence is checked against its sources before it appears here. Corrections: privacy@treealive.com
The United States Post Office and Court House is a four-story building at 815 S Garden St. in Columbia, Maury County, Tennessee, completed in 1941. It was designed by William Dewey Foster and Louis A. Simon, the government's supervising architect, in a Simplified Classical style also described as Stripped Classicism, Colonial Revival and Neoclassical.
Why it's listed
It was listed under criteria A and C, with local significance in architecture and politics and government. Its period of significance runs from 1941 to 1942, when the building was completed and its federally commissioned artwork installed.
Physical character
Granite foundations support walls of Tennessee marble under a tar-and-gravel roof, while marble wainscoting, terrazzo floor panels, plaster ceilings and black walnut trim finish the interior. Henke Construction Company built it, with Neal A. Melick as engineer, and the building has a large basement, a penthouse and a loading dock.
Historical context
Construction began in 1940, and the Post Office occupied the new building on May 21, 1941, with a dedication ceremony that June and a mural by Billings hung in the lobby in 1942. Post office functions left the building in the 1970s, and the Social Security Administration occupied part of the first floor in the 1990s.