US Post Office-Middleborough Main

DATE_ The Middleborough Post Office, constructed in 1932, is located in the heart of the old commercial district on Center Street, one block from the main intersection in the town on the former site of the Pierce Academy. Center Street was, at that time, part of Route 44, the major East-West highway link in the area. The building diagonally faces a three story Victorian commercial block and is adjacent to a Victorian Gothic Episcopal Church across Union Street. The rear of the property is graced by several high-spired wooden churches and the Town Hall. Four Years after the Post Office was opened, the last major building in the neighborhood, the Art-Deco style Union School, was constructed 1937. The site is very well maintained, with large shade trees ringing the property.

The right, or West portion of the land contains substantial open green, well treed and planted with shrubs and a trimmed hedge that continues easterly to border the property line at the building's front facade. Rectangular in plan, some 96 feet long by 54 feet deep, with an attached rear mail platform, the building contains 5,540 square feet of first floor space. The full basement contains office space, carriers areas, boiler room and storage areas. The construction of this single rectangular mass consists of reinforced concrete foundations, brick faced on spread footings, reinforced concrete floor slabs, masonry bearing walls and a composite roof framing, with wood framing at the pitched hip roof surrounds.

The Middleborough Post Office is of Classical Revival design, featuring a five bay front facade, with the center entrance and single flanking fenestration ensconced in the quoined cornered central pavilion, typical of this period revival design.

1931 1933 BUILDER/ARCHITECT James A. Wetmore, Sup. Arch't. R. W. Smythe & Co., Contrs. Constructed in 1932, the Middleborough Post Office possesses integrity of location, design, setting materials and workmanship, as well as association with the Public Works Act of 1926, ammended in 1931 and later placed under the New Deal's Public Works Administration, as a response to both Post Office needs of space requirements and an attempt to stimulate the local economy, producing work for the gravely affected construction trades. Additionally, this ediface is a product of the Federal Government's attempt to establish, or reestablish its strong image. It thus meets National Register criteria A and C. The economic outlook of Middleborough prior to the 1929 Depression was not strong.

Perpetual labor difficulties with the large shoe industry and the woolen mills negated the strong economic surge sweeping the country and, with the later closing of the Atwood Box Factory, the cranberry industry became the prime, although sporadic, labor base in the community. The advent of the Depression also drastically altered the implementation of the Federal Government's building program. While the calls of "Pork Barrel" still echoed in the halls of Congress, more consideration was now given to the actual Federal 'need' in local communities, and spatial requirements of agencies, ,1ogrolling'.

Many communities with such as the Post Office Department took precedence over the earlier no previous federal association now received their first Federal structure, normally in the form of a post office. Early in the Depression, the Hoover Administration attempted to present or improve the image of the Federal Government at the local level, while at the same time, open up a short-term labor market to ease unemployment. Middleborough had little commercial construction during the 1920's.