US Post Office and Courthouse-Alexandria

About this property

The U.S. Post Office and Courthouse, located in Alexandria, Louisiana, was built in 1932, pursuant to the Public Buildings Act of 1926. Also known as Alexandria Federal Building, it is an Art Deco, Moderne architecture building. It served historically as a post office, as a courthouse, and as a government office building. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000. The building was designed by Shreveport architect Edward F. Neild. The courthouse is located in the Central Business District of Alexandria. The federal building is an Art Deco styled, limestone structure with a massive central pavilion resembling a raised temple, and lower projecting wings at each end, topped by a recessed penthouse. Vertical reeded pilasters separate vertical window bays of paired two over two windows. The "raised temple" effect of the second and third floors rests atop a limestone base punctuated by smaller window openings. A massive central doorway is flanked by two smaller door openings. The walls are light buff limestone and rest on a pearl white granite base. The main elevation faces northwest. Each corner of the building (at the projecting wings) begins with square corners and then exhibits gradual chamfering to the roof corner of the wing. The chamfer effect appears to give the building a more massive look at ground level and a more delicate look at the roof line. The first floor and mezzanine are simply detailed; the majority of the ornamentation is concentrated on the second and third floors. All first floor windows have a verde green marble spandrel ornamented by cast metal rod motif at either side. The main entry to the building is at the center of the northwest elevation. There are broad granite steps and cheek walls which lead to the entries. The cheek walls are ornamented with horizontal incised scoring at the top and an unusual Art Deco style light standard rests atop each cheek wall. The standard has a bronze shaft trimmed at each corner with aluminum. Four concentric aluminum circles form a "cage" for the cylinder itself at the apex of the shaft. The three main entry doors are set within a stepped-back limestone surround. The large main door is a double door set in the center of the elevation, and smaller single entry doors flank the main one. There are ornamental cast bronze grilles above wave-like lintels atop the doors. The central grille depicts the stage coach, steam ship and mail train. The single doors depict mail delivery by packet boat and airplane. Above each single entry door is a carved, recessed limestone plaque with the American eagle motif.

Location

Categories

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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