South Carolina Department of Archives and History
National Register Properties in South Carolina

Bamberg Post Office, Bamberg County (11995 Heritage Hwy., Bamberg)
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Facade Right Oblique Right Elevation Rear Elevation Left Elevation
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Main Entrance Palladian Window
over Entrance
Detail of
English Bond
Bricwork
Window
Underpanels
Cornerstone
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Interior
Entrance and
Vestibule
Interior
Post Office
Boxes
Interior
Chair Rail
and Marble
Wainscotting
Interior
Lobby
Interior
Postmaster's
Office Door
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Interior
Dorothea Mierisch's
"Cotton Through
the Ages" Mural

The Bamberg Post Office, built in 1937-38, is significant as an excellent example of a New Deal-era post office with a modern classic or restrained Colonial Revival design produced by the Public Works Division of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, and including a 1939 mural funded by the Section of Fine Arts of the Department of the Treasury. It is also significant as a design directed by Louis A. Simon, Supervising Architect of the Department of the Treasury, who oversaw a staff of architects designing post offices, courthouses, office buildings, and other federal government buildings under the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. This post office was also designed to include offices for the county extension agent and the county home demonstration agent, programs administered by the Extension Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and in part by the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, during the New Deal era. The featured mural, “Cotton The World Over,” painted in oil on canvas by Dorothea Mierisch of New York, was intended to emphasize the significance of cotton in world, American, state, and local history. The Bamberg Post Office is a relatively plain, even spare, building, in part reflecting the design philosophy of the Public Works Division and in part reflecting the economy of the second half of the decade in which it was constructed. The building's form is rectangular with any architectural ornamentation decidedly recessed, shallow in relief, or omitted. Its basement walls are laid in smooth cast stone, while the upper red brick walls are laid in English bond, with the only characteristic belying its crispness of form being a distinctly textured pattern created by the alternating courses of headers and stretchers. Listed in the National Register May 22, 2007.

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