Photographs from the nomination case file, National Park Service records.
US Post Office--Lexington Main
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1986. 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
“Such were tlie opinions expressed, the resokitions adopted, and the measures taken by the people of tliis Province, long before the 19th of April, 1775. It was not the battle of Lexington that gave rise to the llevolution.”
History of the Town of Lexington, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, from Its First Settlement to 1868, with a Genealogical Register of Lexington Families (1868). Machine-read text.
one of 1100 National Register listings in Middlesex County · listed in 1986 · category: Building · one of 3 National Historic Landmarks in Middlesex County.
National Register reference number.86001377- 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.
What happened here
An account from the chapter on Lexington town, The inset identifies its exact
source book and publication year.
He was first taxed in 1748< He was a member of Capt. Parker's company on the morning of 19 April 1775, and was severely wounded by a bullet which struck his right arm, and so fractured the bone that he was not only disabled for a long time, but pieces of bone were extracted from it for several months afterward.
Of the illustrations bound witli this work, the portraits of Rev. Mr. Hancock, Col. INIunroe, and the author were furnished by their respective descendants ; and those of Theodore Parker, Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Follen, and Rev. Mr. Stetson, by their numerous friends resident in the vicinity. The views of dwelling-houses, including the Lexington House, Avere, except as stated below, sup])lied by their present or late owners ; and those of public buildings by citizens' subscriptions.
In the exercise of the powers given to them, the Committee have inserted the following illustrations at the town's expense, viz. : a lithographic portrait of Jonathan Harrington ; wood enjrravinffs of the Clarke House, the old Munroe Tavern, the INIonument, the proposed Monument, and the Battle Scene on the 19th of April ; diagrams of Lexington Common, and the Old North Bridge at Concord, with their surroundings as they were in 1775 ; andy^c similes of the autogi'aphs of twenty-nine men whose names are affixed to public documents which are a part of the History. It was thought that nothing ought to be omitted from the book, which could serve to explain, or invest with additional interest, the events narrated.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 32 fires within 5 miles of US Post Office--Lexington Main between
1992 and 2020, burning about 26 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 3 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
Debris and open burning
13
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
12
Arson/incendiarism
3
Other causes
1
Misuse of fire by a minor
1
Natural
1
Recreation and ceremony
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 1,831 specimens
collected within 10 miles of US Post Office--Lexington Main between 1898 and
1975: 798 Animalia, 569 Plantae, 407 Fungi, 23 Protozoa, 17 Bacteria, 9 Unrecorded, 8 Chromista. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by ?, A B Seymour, A B. Proper 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
11 workings within 5 miles of US Post Office--Lexington Main: 7 past producers, 2 producers, 2 plants.
4 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Peat, Clay, Iron. 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
Lexington, the town this property stands in, in 14 storm reports between 1997 and 2022: 6 hail, 6 thunderstorm wind, 1 flood, 1 lightning.
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.
Three lanes of Route 128 in Burlington were closed due to flooding. There was also 6 inches of flooding across the all lanes of Route 128 near North Street in Reading.
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.
From the nomination file
2,786 words on record
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
_PHYSICAL APPEARANCE_ The Post Office is on the front portion of the site with the vehicle maneuvering area to its rear accessed from Grant Street. The east side of the lot is bounded by a driveway for the town offices. The site is land- scaped with lawn and shrubs. Prominent features include a pitched roof, wood cupola, and a strong architectural entrance. A 1964 addition wraps the rear two-thirds of the building, changing the original symmetrical plans and elevation into one of asymmetry. The lobby was completely remodeled at this time; it no longer possesses the robust quality of the original 1930's landcratted interior. In plan, the building is fronted with a public lobby, ehind which is the Postmaster's office, workroom, mail vestibule, anc platform.
Four low granite steps and a deep landing create the main approach. They are framed by wrought-iron railings which terminate with a lamppost. The original building rests on a granite base topped with a band of ashlar granite stones. The public area of the building is marked by its asphalt shingled gable room (formerly of slate), five bays by two bays, with an added metal rain diverter above the entry doors and a wood cupola behind. The rest of the building is topped by a flat roof and parapet wall. The Brevite 81l5 and intets ti elevations are red brick laid in Flemish bond with a wood entablature and The wood entablature surrounds the entire structure with a plain frieze and denticulated cornice. The wood cupola, square in plan, has fixed metal louvers and metal weathervane.
The front (south) elevation consists of the original five-bay building with a two-bay addition added to the east, recessed two bays from the original surface.
Addition: 1964 _RELIGION _SCIENCE _SCULPTURE _SOCIAL/HUMANITARIAN _THEATER -TRANSPORTATION -OTHER (SPECIEVI LouIs A. Simon, Sup. Architect BUILDER/ARCHITECT Sandros & Co., Contractor Harold M. Turiello, Architect for Addition Although less than 50 years old, the Lexington Main Post Office merits inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places as an example of the type of standardized construction and design advocated by the Public Works Administration (PWA) during the 1930's. Built in 1938, it is located in a transitional area between commercial and residential districts in Lexington Center. Its modest, domestic scale and red brick, white stone trimmed exterior treatments render their building compatible with residential and low-rise commercial buildings in the area.
Lexington's historical associations with the early British and American skirmishes of the American Revolution evidently dictated the choice of Colonial Revival for their building's style. It was designed within the office of supervising architect Louis A. Simon. Standardized construction procedure following a seven-area plan typical of 1930's post office buildings, is one of the key features of this building. This structure was started in late 1937. The cornerstone was laid on May 20, 1938 and only seven months later it was dedicated on November 28, 1938. Construction costs totalled $65,000. The cornerstone reads "Henry Morgenthau Jr., Secretary of the Treasury; James A. Farley, Postmaster General; Louis A.
Simon, Supervising Architect; Neal Melmick, Supervising Engineer, 1937." This building is a product of the office of U.S. Supervising Architect Louis A. Simon. During his tenure (1933-1941), emphasis was placed on streamlined construction so as to bring economic benefits to a community during the Depression. Louis Adolf Simon was born in 1870 in Boston. He attended M.I.I. and entered private practice in Washington, D.C. in 1894. He began work in the office of the U.S. Treasury Supervising Architect in 1896.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 86001377, 21 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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