Bamberg Post Office
National Register Listing
Street Address:
11955 Heritage Highway (US Highway 78), Bamberg, SC (Bamberg County)
NRHP Nomination
Record Number:
S10817705012
Description and Narrative:
The Bamberg Post Office, built in 1937-38, is significant as an excellent example of a New Deal-era post office with a modern classic or restrained Colonial Revival design produced by the Public Works Division of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, and including a 1939 mural funded by the Section of Fine Arts of the Department of the Treasury. It is also significant as a design directed by Louis A. Simon, Supervising Architect of the Department of the Treasury, who oversaw a staff of architects designing post offices, courthouses, office buildings, and other federal government buildings under the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. This post office was also designed to include offices for the county extension agent and the county home demonstration agent, programs administered by the Extension Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and in part by the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, during the New Deal era. The featured mural, “Cotton The World Over,” painted in oil on canvas by Dorothea Mierisch of New York, was intended to emphasize the significance of cotton in world, American, state, and local history. The Bamberg Post Office is a relatively plain, even spare, building, in part reflecting the design philosophy of the Public Works Division and in part reflecting the economy of the second half of the decade in which it was constructed. The building's form is rectangular with any architectural ornamentation decidedly recessed, shallow in relief, or omitted. Its basement walls are laid in smooth cast stone, while the upper red brick walls are laid in English bond, with the only characteristic belying its crispness of form being a distinctly textured pattern created by the alternating courses of headers and stretchers. Listed in the National Register May 22, 2007.
Period of Significance:
1937 – 1938
Level of Significance:
Local
Area of Significance:
Architecture
National Register Determination:
listed
Date of Certification:
May 22 2007
