Delivering rich

local history
By Jason Reagan
reagan@wataugademocrat.com

Most Boone residents would agree with a recent U.S. interior department document, calling the downtown Boone post office, “the most significant [Works Progress Administration] building in Boone.”

Built in 1938, the post office features the colonial revival style of architecture while also using native stone as the primary building material.

The former Watauga County Library and Office Building was also built in the same year using the same style.

Opponents of the possible sale and closure of the post office point out the fact that the building also holds a piece of local history on the inside with the dominant wall mural depicting Daniel Boone leading a band of settlers through the Appalachian Mountains.

The federal government commissioned Connecticut artist Alan Tompkins to create the mural in 1940. Tompkins died at the age of 100 in December.

Although many assume the mural was also a WPA project, postal historian Patricia Raynor maintains the mural fell under the federal Section of Fine Arts, an agency tasked with selecting “art of high quality to decorate public buildings—if the funding was available.”

“Post offices were located in virtually every community and available for viewing by all postal patrons—which made post office murals a truly democratic art form,” Raynor stated in a 1997 article.

Ironically, the post office was added to the National Register of Historical Places on Jan. 11, 1996 — exactly 12 years to the day the current public notice announcing the possible sale of the building was posted on the post office door. Along with the Jones House, the post office is the only remaining downtown buildings left on the registry. The Daniel Boone Hotel was demolished.

Jeff Eason contributed

to this report.