The Ghost Of Post Office Past

By NORA EDINGER

For the Sunday News-Register

WHEELING -- The terrazzo-floored, marble-walled lobby is quiet in a sanctuary-on-a-Monday-morning kind of way. Only two of the dozen or so aluminum-grilled windows that once bustled with an entire city's worth of all things postal are open. There's no line at either.

Even in mid-December, what remains of this largely forgotten post office -- located discreetly inside one end of the Frederick P. Stamp, Jr. Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse -- can pretty much be handled by one guy at the counter, a maintenance worker and the security staff associated with the better-known role of the facility.

Not to say that there aren't things going on.

Downtown businesses in particular continue to use the facility for shipping and receiving packages. Holiday-minded individuals are still dropping tidy stacks of red and green envelopes into letter slots or sliding them across counters. And, some especially old-soul residents come by regularly to get their mail, according to Jenny Lynch, a historian for the U.S. Postal Service.

"The Postal Service has updated the (downtown facility) to accommodate modern demands (point-of-sale terminals, internet, etc.) while maintaining the original beauty of the historic building," Lynch said in email comments for this article. "The P.O. boxes are still in use today."

And there are an abundance of such boxes from which to choose.

One section that is tucked into a corner features brass-fronted boxes that can only be accessed with combination dials that use the letters A through J. Others are Art Deco and silvery and have keys -- the masters of which are still stored in a wooden box that looks to be handmade.

CHANGE OF

ADDRESS

It's no mystery as to why the downtown post office -- which technically is referred to as the Downtown Wheeling Finance Station because there are no carriers on site -- has largely disappeared from public knowledge. A Center Wheeling site further down Chapline Street became the city's main post office in September 1966 -- before many living city residents were born.

There's also the access issue.

The downtown post office -- at 12th and Chapline streets -- has only a handful of metered parking spaces within reasonable walking distance. The Center Wheeling hub, in contrast, allows customers to park near its doors. Or to drive by blue boxes where stamped mail can be dropped off with no more effort than rolling down a car window.

Switching to a car-friendly facility made sense to customers in mid-century-modern America.

And, in the same way, it made sense when still-longer-ago customers switched from an even earlier postal facility --the former U.S. Custom House -- to the downtown location at the dawn of the 20th century.

A quick look at histories maintained by the U.S. Postal Service and the U.S. Government Services Administration shows it has, in fact, seen address changes all the way through.

In the late 1700s, Wheeling was morphing from frontier outpost to a distinct city. The first official Post Offices in what is now West Virginia came to the Eastern Panhandle -- to both Martinsburg and Shepherdstown in 1792, according to Postal Service records.

But, Wheeling was part of an Ohio River mail route not long after, according to various city histories. The city's first postmaster, John Finley, was appointed in 1794.

By the mid 1800s, Wheeling was a rapidly growing transportation hub whose designation as an inland port dictated the need for a Custom House with postal functions rather than a dedicated post office, again according to the Postal Service and GSA records. That 1859 building still stands as the West Virginia Independence Hall.

Only a few decades into use, however, the city outgrew the Custom House. In 1907, a similarly multi-roled facility that is the core of today's federal building was completed at 12th and Chapline streets. Postal Service and GSA records indicate the site was initially criticized as it was located north of the city's then center.

The reaction to the new structure itself was likely more positive, however. The building was constructed under the Tarsney Act of 1893, the service and GSA histories state. This allowed an architectural competition.

Marsh & Peter -- which had several Washington, D.C. commissions -- ultimately won, designing the Wheeling structure in the Beaux Arts Classicism style, according to the federal histories. Wheeling architect Frank Faris handled on-site operations.

In the late 1930s, the building was enlarged for the first of three times. This round of improvements included a new post office portion that was designed by Wheeling architect George W. Petticord. Petticord's work remains intact in the southern end of today's federal building, which was enlarged as recently as 2004 and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

FORWARD ORDER

It's worth noting that the communities of Warwood and Elm Grove also had independent postal facilities whose offices are now located inside Wheeling's city limits. And that the main post office in Center Wheeling is no longer a processing facility. Those operations are handled nearly 60 miles away, in Pittsburgh.

There's been enough change to suggest customers who would like a glimpse of all that marble and terrazzo tile might not want to dither. The Postal Services' Lynch merely pointed to the here and now.

"While change is inevitable, we are pleased to be able to continue to serve our customers at the Downtown Wheeling Finance Station," she said.