UNITED STATES POST OFFICE
Church Avenue at First Street, Roanoke
Begun 1893; demolished c. 1933
Photograph: William McCauley, History of Roanoke County, Salem, Roanoke City, Virginia (1902)
In the aftermath of the Civil War, Virginia was awarded a series of federal post offices and courthouses that stood as symbols
of the state's recovery from Reconstruction. The works were designed in Washington by the office of the Supervising
Architect of the Treasury. In 1893 Jeremiah O'Rourke held the title and designed the building pictured here. In his
private practice O'Rourke had produced designs for a number of Roman Catholic churches, schemes that showed
the hand of a medievalist. Here he used varieties of light stone trim to create a polychrome elevation in the High
Victorian Gothic mode. Even the "Romanesque" arches of the structure, slightly pointed at the apex, appeared to
soar.
Next: Libby Prison
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