Old Post Office & Customhouse
The history
815 Olive Street, built 1873–84 to designs by Alfred B. Mullett, Supervising Architect of the Treasury and the man responsible for the Old Executive Office Building in Washington, with William Appleton Potter and James G. Hill finishing it. Grey Maine granite, Second Empire, mansard roofs and a cast-iron dome frame inside — one of only four Mullett federal buildings still standing. It was slated for demolition in the 1960s and saved by a public fight; the central court is open and worth walking into.
In brief
The U.S. Custom House and Post Office is a court house at 815 Olive Street in downtown St. Louis, Missouri, United States. It was designed by architects Alfred B. Mullett, William Appleton Potter, and James G. Hill, and was constructed between 1873 and 1884. Located at the intersection of Eighth and Olive Streets, it is one of four surviving Federal office buildings designed by Mullett. The others are the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, a part of the White House complex in Washington, D.C., the Century Post Office in Raleigh, North Carolina, and the U.S. Custom House in Portland, Maine. It is built in the Second Empire architectural style that was popular in the post American Civil War era. Mullett's other Second Empire buildings in Boston, Cincinnati, New York City, and Philadelphia have been demolished.
Read more →Then & now
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