Classic Post Office Keeps on Truckin’
by Abel Chuma Bustamante

“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds” – as engraved on the exterior of the U.S. Postal Service building in Washington, D.C., a motto evident in Downtown El Paso’s Post Office.

Entered in The National Register of Historic Places in 1984 for its historical significance in architecture and engineering, Downtown El Paso’s Post Office has been in service since 1917. Since then, the post office has been habituated to change: Until 1970, the United States Postal Service used a running pony as its logo. Then, an eagle was used, only to be redesigned in the 1990s to show the eagle’s head. In 1998, the El Paso Postal Fleet was the first and only fleet in the nation to operate all of its delivery vehicles on domestically-produced natural gas.In 2001, Downtown El Paso’s Post Office was restored and renovated in three principle ways: one, to restore the public areas of this classical building back to their original grandeur; two, to provide access to the building for those with physical disabilities, and; three, to update the private and working spaces to current standards and codes.

The first process to restore the original, classical style of the post office was to keep its grand rotunda, wainscoting and original mail boxes. While the interior walls were repainted to the original colors, the plastic skylight was replaced with a replica of the original art glass skylight in the rotunda. The 1960s-era vestibule was removed and the exterior doors were replaced to match the original setting, and the ceramic tile flooring was also removed to expose the original marble lobby floor below. The second development saw the addition of a ramp to provide access to the lobby for those with disabilities, while the third made the appropriate and necessary restorations to bring it to the latest and current building codes and United States Postal Service building standards.