Dayton’s Old Post Office is a beautiful building that still stands downtown, although it hasn’t served as a post office since the urban renewal era.
We can thank a dedicated preservation effort in the 1970s for why it is still here instead of having been turned into another parking lot like most of the land to its south and east.
It’s an interesting story both for its status as an architectural gem, as well as its place in the story of Dayton’s rapid growth and the subsequent building evolution it inspired.
Early Post Office History in Dayton
The very first post office in Dayton was a modest one: pioneer settler Benjamin Van Cleve’s cabin. The service was similarly humble: a post rider brought the mail once every two weeks.
After service picked up and the operation outgrew that location, the post office took up a variety of temporary locations around downtown.
In 1892 a new stone post office and federal building was erected at the southwest corner of Fifth and Main. But Dayton’s growth continued at such a pace that by the time it was just 10 years old, it was already considered too small.
Some proposed expanding the existing building, but that proved to be an expensive proposition that lacked support. Then James M. Cox, founder of the Dayton Daily News and then a congressman, declared that “what Dayton needs is a new, million dollar post office.”
Congress passed a bill for its funding, and the new location was chosen as the southeast corner of Third and Wilkinson, spanning the block up to the location of the Algonquin Hotel (more recently Dayton Grand).
The previous “old” post office at Fifth and Ludlow was demolished in 1911, only nineteen years after it was built. Later, the Fidelity Building was constructed in its place, which has been vacant since 2009 but recently won tax credits toward a major redevelopment.
Previous Buildings on the “Old Post Office” Site
It’s also interesting to explore the many earlier buildings on the large Old Post Office site on Third Street between Ludlow and Wilkinson, which were demolished for the grand new building. The most prominent of these was the home of Valentine Winters, built in 1850, which was also the former home of the YWCA from 1892 to 1912:
There was also a Methodist parsonage closer to Ludlow next to the hotel building:
and a pair of commercial buildings on the other side of the block at the corner of Third and Wilkinson which had been the Quality Furniture Shop, and J. F. Geiger Building Materials
The Old Post Office Building Itself
Now we finally get to the main event of this article, the Old Post Office.
Built in 1915, it was lauded as one of the greatest public buildings in the whole country and dubbed the “Grecian Lady of Third Street.”
The Neoclassical Revival building features a colonnade of 16 monolith columns, each carved from a single block of New Hampshire granite.
Reliefs of eagles, wreaths, scrolls, and no fewer than 91 lions heads adorn the façade.
But eventually, Dayton’s main post office moved to a new building on East Fifth Street in the lost Haymarket neighborhood near St. Anne’s Hill. After the post office and federal offices vacated the space in the mid 1970s, the “Grecian Lady” was slated for demolition.
But it was saved by the local architecture firm of Lorenz and Williams, with some help from John Glenn, the former astronaut turned senator, in acquiring it. Lorenz and Williams helped save other prominent Dayton landmarks including the Victoria Theatre, and for over a decade had its own offices in the Old Post Office building.
The current US bankruptcy court has operated in the building since the 1990s.
Additional Sources:
- https://www.dayton.com/news/special-reports/what-dayton-building-was-called-the-grecian-lady/jkEU1o4OWgsdZ5xJ7vKvPO/
- Lost Dayton, Ohio (has additional post office history)
- Historic Images courtesy of Dayton Metro Library
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