The Post Office, and What the Painter Put in the Middle

1. GENERAL VIEW OF POST OFFICE LOOKING SOUTH - U.S. Post Office, Market & South Jefferson Street, Mount UnionLibrary of Congress, Historic American Buildings Survey / Historic American Engineering Record. No known copyright restrictions. pa2848.photos.038942p

The date is cut into the front of the building: 1936.

That same year the Treasury Department's Section of Painting and Sculpture sent an artist to put a mural inside it. He signed it Paul Rohland. What he chose to paint is the part worth keeping. He did not center the picture on a church or a courthouse or a mountain. He put Harbison-Walker's smoking kilns and the rows of Ganister Hill houses dead in the middle of it.

Fifteen years later the company tore every one of those houses down. The painting is still on the wall.

Sources

LOC caption pa2848.photos.038942p (HABS PA-5989)
HABS PA-5974 pp.7-8

Checked 2026-08-30 · Historic Mount Union collection

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