U.S. Post Office (Modesto, California)

 place with historical importance, post office, NRHP - National Register of Historic Places, 1933_construction

El Viejo Post Office
1125 I Street
Modesto, CA
Built 1932-1933

In addition to being a fully functional post office, the Federal Building is a well-preserved example of a small public building sensitively designed in a classical idiom by the Supervising Architect's office of the United States Treasury Department. The tempera murals in the lobby are the only examples in Modesto of federally sponsored decorative artwork produced during the Depression. As art, the murals are less than stellar, but they are significant as examples of the widespread social realist art movement of the thirties and forties.

The Federal Building was part of the extensive federal building program initiated in the late 1920s by the Hoover administration - the forerunner to Roosevelt's Public Works Administration. As the first federal building erected in the city, it was a source of pride for Modestans and a locally prominent symbol of the federal government.

National Register of Historic Places # 83001246