Area less than one acre NRHP Reference # 89001758 Added to NRHP 1 November 1989 | Built 1916-17 Architectural style Neoclassical architecture Architect James A. Wet | |
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Location 149 NE. Third St., Valley City, North Dakota Built by O'Neill, William, & Son MPS US Post Offices in North Dakota, 1900-1940 MPS Similar Sheyenne River Valley Na, Baldhill Dam, US Post Office‑Long Beach M, United States Post Office, US Post Office‑Hoosick Falls | ||
The Valley City Post Office, in Valley City, North Dakota, was designed in 1915 and built during 1916-17. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989 as U.S. Post Office-Valley City.
Its Classical Revival design is credited to the U.S. Office of Supervising Architect, James A. Wetmore, Acting Supervising Architect, although it was designed "in the spirit" of James Knox Taylor. It was built when post office designs were just beginning to be standardized, but shows individuality and does not follow any of the standardized plans that were adopted in 1915 at the national level. In fact, according to its NRHP nomination, it "was one of the last designs of its kind, and harks back to an earlier era when federal buildings were monolithic, imposing, costly, and built according to Beaux Arts principles of massing." It was described in a local newspaper account in 1916 as "'much more pretentious than most of the federal buildings that are being erected throughout the west when the size of the cities are taken into consideration'".