Photograph of Melvin Price Federal Building and United States Courthouse — Photograph by Nyttend, Public domain. Via Wikimedia Commons.

United States Post Office and Courthouse

Built in 1909 (Beaux-Arts). Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2014.

From the record

“The Melvin Price Federal Building and United States Courthouse, historically known as the United States Post Office and Courthouse, is a historic federal building located at 750 Missouri Avenue in East St. The building served as the city's main post office and still serves as the courthouse of the Southern District of Illinois; it is named for U.S.”
Wikipedia article Melvin Price Federal Building and United States Courthouse, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 27 National Register listings published here for St. Clair County · listed in 2014 · category: Building · built in 1909, Beaux-Arts, by James Knox Taylor.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
Address. 750 Missouri Ave., East Saint Louis, 62201
When was it listed? August 2014
Category. building
Township. East St. Louis township
When was it built? 1909
Architectural style. Beaux-Arts
Architect. James Knox Taylor
National Register reference number. 14000478 - assigned by the National Park Service when the property was listed.

The ground it stands on

9,003 words

This property stands in East St. Louis Township. History of St. Clair County, Illinois. With Illustrations ... and Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men and Pioneers, published 1881; Centennial, McKendree College, with St. Clair County History, published 1928 gives that township a chapter of its own.

The chapter covers the township.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on East St. Louis Township - 9,003 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.

Fires near this property

11 since 2008

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 11 fires within 5 miles of United States Post Office and Courthouse between 2008 and 2014, burning about 6 acres in total. None started naturally. 2 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	5
Smoking	3
Arson/incendiarism	2
Debris and open burning	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
24 March 2014	Smoking	1.0 acres	Illinois Division of Forestry Resources	CBHALWACHS
21 March 2014	Arson/incendiarism	1.0 acres	Illinois Division of Forestry Resources	BHALWACHS
19 March 2014	Arson/incendiarism	1.0 acres	Illinois Division of Forestry Resources	HALWACHS
13 March 2009	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	2.0 acres	Illinois Division of Forestry Resources	GREEN
26 February 2009	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Illinois Division of Forestry Resources	DELMAR
14 February 2008	Smoking	1.0 acres	Illinois Division of Forestry Resources	CANTEEN
5 December 2009	Smoking	under an acre	Illinois Division of Forestry Resources	I64 M9.5
17 December 2011	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Illinois Division of Forestry Resources	79TH

Every fire recorded in St. Clair County

Mines and quarries near this property

10 of 38 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 38 workings within 5 miles of United States Post Office and Courthouse: 33 past producers, 2 plants, 2 producers, 1 prospect. 4 still produce. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken, Copper, Zinc, Refiner, Sulfur, Sulfuric Acid. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
(Facility) Cerro Copper Sauget Smelter	Copper	Plant
(Facility) Sauget Zinc Refinery	Zinc, Refiner, Sulfur, Sulfuric Acid	Plant
Hypothetical Lead Mine	Lead, Silver, Zinc, Cobalt, Copper, Nickel, Cadmium	Prospect	Underground
Madison Plant	Thorium	Producer
Pfizer Inc. Mineral Pigments	Iron	Producer
Bambrick-Bates Constr. Co Quarry 2	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
Bambrick-Bates Constr. Co. Quarry 3	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
Bowdirns Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
Carl's Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer
Carlins Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Past Producer

Every working recorded in St. Clair County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Majestic Theatre	0.2 miles	1985
Union Trust Bank Company Building	0.3 miles	2014
Downtown East St. Louis Historic District	0.3 miles	2014
Spivey Building	0.3 miles	2002
Broadview Hotel	0.4 miles	2013
Pennsylvania Avenue Historic District	0.6 miles	1979

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 14000478 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
St. Clair County	All 27 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.