Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1981. A historic map-sheet match is not published yet. The record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary.
From the record
“The Old Post Office Building is a historic building in Lynn, Massachusetts. The two-story Colonial Revival building was built in 1897 to serve as the growing city's new post office.”
Wikipedia article Old Post Office Building (Lynn, Massachusetts), CC BY-SA 4.0.
one of 350 National Register listings in Essex County · listed in 1981 · category: Building · one of 2 National Historic Landmarks in Essex County.
National Register reference number.81000118- the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
The following pages will give some account of this numerous family, descended, as will be shown, from two brothers who probably settled in the town of Lynn about A. D. 1630. Their names are to be found on the list of grantees of lots in a division of lands in 1638, as appears in the papers on file in the office of the Clerk of the Courts for Essex County, in the case of William Longley vs. the Town of Lynn, March Term, 1660-1.
The Lynn Records inform us that Thomas Newhall, Sonr, was buried the first of April, 1(>S7. He probably left a Will ; for, on the 14th of April, 1687, an Inventory of Ensigne Thomas Newhall of Lynn, late deceased, appraised 8th of April, 1G87, by John Fuller, Son1'. Ralph King and John Burrill, was presented by John Newhall, "one of the Executors," and is recorded in Suffolk County : but no record of the Will appears and neither Will nor
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 76 fires within 5 miles of Old Post Office Building between
2003 and 2020, burning about 253 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 7 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
Recreation and ceremony
26
Smoking
16
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
7
Debris and open burning
7
Arson/incendiarism
7
Misuse of fire by a minor
4
Equipment and vehicle use
4
Fireworks
3
Natural
1
Railroad operations and maintenance
1
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. Museums hold 10,578 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Old Post Office Building between 1800 and
1975: 5,082 Plantae, 2,950 Animalia, 1,006 Chromista, 831 Fungi, 406 Unrecorded, 290 Bacteria, 13 Protozoa. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A B. Proper, A. A. Eaton, A. B. Hervey and others. Each is a
physical object with a catalogue
number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was
collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be
concluded from a species being absent.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
12 workings within 5 miles of Old Post Office Building: 4 producers, 3 past producers, 2 unknowns, 2 plants.
6 still produce. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken, Sand and Gravel, Construction, Iron, Gold. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Lynn, the town this property stands in, in 37 storm reports between 2006 and 2023: 16 thunderstorm wind, 9 hail, 5 flood, 5 flash flood.
No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office
filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date
opens the federal record of that event.
Numerous trees and wires were downed throughout Lynn, closing thirty to forty streets. An amateur radio operator recorded a wind gust of 60 mph on their home weather station on Centre Street.
At 9:16 AM EST, cars on Monroe Street in Lynn were floating in the street. At 9:18 AM EST, water was rising in a building on Monroe Street, causing people to stand on chairs. At 9:31 AM cars were trapped in flood waters on Chatham Street under a bridge; the road was impassable. At 10:03 AM the basement door to a building on Union Street had collapsed due to the flooding, and water was pouring in. At 10:18 AM, large sections of Boston Street in Lynn were flooded and impassable, and several cars were trapped in the floodwaters. At 10:32 AM state route 107 on the Lynn/Salem border was closed due to flooding. At 10:59 AM EST, manhole covers were reported coming off the road on Seymour Avenue. A car was trapped in three feet of water on Wilfred Street; the road was impassable. At 11:42 AM EST, street flooding on Erie Street reached several feet.
Lightning struck a three family home on Washington Street, setting fire to the house. Damage was to the front roof in the third floor unit. Residents in the third floor unit were unable to return to their unit due to water damage. Other units were not damaged.
In Swampscott, a car was stuck in flood waters at the Santander Bank parking lot. Crowinshield Street was flooded in Peabody. A car was stuck in flood waters on Endicott Street. Leather City Common was flooded with six to twelve inches of water.
In Peabody, a car was stuck in two feet of water on America Drive. A car was stuck in flood waters on the ramp for the Northshore Mall from Route 114 to Route 128. In Lynn, four to six inches covered all three eastbound lanes of the Lynnway. Other streets in Lynn were flooded with three feet of water and the fire department responded to two calls of people stuck in their cars. In Beverly, Federal Street between MacPherson Drive and Rantoul and Lothrop Street at Route 127 were closed due to flooding. The fire department reported several streets flooded with at least 3 feet of water. They responded to about a half dozen calls of people stuck in their cars. In Salem, Highland Avenue was flooded out.
In Lynn, large branches and wires were downed by thunderstorm winds. In Marblehead, trees and wires on Green Street and Kenneth Road were downed by thunderstorm winds. One of the trees on Kenneth Road landed on a house.
A tree and wires were downed onto a fence on Warwick Street in Lynn. Also, an eight inch diameter tree branch was downed and blew into a house, the house sustained minor damage. Several other tree limbs were downed on Lynnfield Street and Savory Street.
In Swampscott, several cars were stuck in street flooding on Paradise Road (Route 1A). |Also, a car was stuck at the intersection of Stetson Avenue and Norfolk Avenue.
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.
Named in the fire insurance atlases
Sanborn surveyors printed an index of the
town's establishments at the front of each atlas. This property is named in
one, read straight off the scanned sheet.
When this property was proposed for the
National Register, someone wrote the case for it: what the building is,
and why it matters. That document is a federal record in the public domain.
It is quoted below word for word, never summarised. The text was read off the scanned case file by machine, so the
occasional stray character is the recogniser's and the 1970s
typewriter's.
Description of the property
The Old Lymn Post Office is a two story Renaissance Revival style building occupying a lot with frontage on Washington, Liberty, and Willow Streets. Ihe structure contains three sections, a rectangular plan, front section built in 1897-1898, a one-story loading platform added to the rear wall (east) of the front section between 1924 and 1938, and a concrete block garage added to the north wall of the loading platform in the mid-twentieth century. The building's front section (original structure) rests on a basement of dressed granite ashlar. The basement is below grade level at the building's north end, is exposed to an open light well on the west facade and is largely above ground at the south end.
The building's upper floors are constructed of yellow brick with ornate trimmings glazed yellow terracotta (1.e. modilllons, egg and dart mouldings, bead and reel mouldings and all window trim). At the second story, the building becomes "U" shaped in plan with an open court on its east (rear) wall. The structure is by a hip roof covered with metal - sheathing which is partially concealed by a solid parapet. WEST FACADE: The building's major facade faces Liberty Street and is made up of nine bays, symmetrically arranged. The outermost, end bays are semi-circular and contain the buildings major entries. Both entry bays are approached from flights of granite stairs with stepped solid railings. Each entry is at the first story and is set at a 45° angle to the major facade.
Although original doors have been replaced, both entries retain original decoration consisting of polished granite columns with marble Ionic capitals supporting a brick and terracotta entablature.
/Architect Unknown Statement of Significance (in one paragraph) The Old Lynn Post Office Building possesses integrity of location, design, materials, and workman- ship. It is significant for its associations with civic growth in Lym and as a unique local example of Renaissance Revival style architecture. Designed in 1896 and built in 1897-1898, the building is constructed of yellow brick with ornate classical trim (mouldings, pilaster capitals, entablatures, and cornices) made of glazed, yellow terracotta. Unusual . features of the building include its two semi-circular entry bays located at the structure's north- west and southwest corners.
Each bay contains an entry framed by Ionic colums of polished granite each bay is capped by a dome covered with copper sheathing, embossed with a fish- scale pattern. With the exception of the main entries' doors, which have been changed, the exterior of the Old Lynn Post Office is in original condition. The Post Office meets criteria A and C of the National Register of Historic Places. The rapid growth of Lym's business and population in the 1880s and 1890s created the need for a large central post office to handle the city's increasing volume of mail. In 1891, sites for such a building were considered, although the present lot was not selected until 1895, when government architects who are unnamed in local accounts prepared plans for a large Romanesque Revival style building.
-For reasons enknown, the first proposed buzlding was never built; instead the plans were withdrawn and the present building's design was accepted in July of 1896. Construction began in 1897 and was finished in 1898.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 81000118, 20 pages, held by the National Archives in Record
Group 79. See the
catalogue record.
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.
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.
Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.
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.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.
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