Terre Haute Post Office and Federal Building (1934), Terre Haute, Indiana
A three-story PWA Moderne federal building at 7th and Cherry Streets in downtown Terre Haute — the New Deal’s stripped-classical Art Deco idiom at its most refined — completed December 1, 1934 to house the post office, FBI, IRS, and Social Security Administration under one New Deal roof, listed on the National Register in 1984, and after a $30 million restoration reopened in 2007 as the Indiana State University Scott College of Business.
At a glance
The Terre Haute Post Office and Federal Building stands at the corner of 7th and Cherry Streets in downtown Terre Haute, Indiana. Designed by the local firm Miller & Yeager and completed on December 1, 1934, the three-story PWA Moderne building — a Depression-era subtype of Art Deco developed by the Roosevelt administration’s Public Works Administration — housed multiple federal agencies under one roof during the New Deal period. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984, the building was the subject of a $30 million renovation that returned it to active use as the Indiana State University Scott College of Business in 2007, with classes beginning in Fall 2012 after fitout of the interior spaces.
Key facts
- Built: 1934 (completed December 1, 1934; opened 1935)
- Style: PWA Moderne (Art Deco subtype)
- Architect: Miller & Yeager (Terre Haute)
- Stories: 3
- Original tenants: U.S. Post Office; FBI field office; IRS; Social Security Administration
- NRHP listed: August 13, 1984
- Renovation: $30 million; Indiana State University Scott College of Business (reopened 2007; classes began Fall 2012)
- Address: Corner of 7th Street and Cherry Street, Terre Haute, Indiana
- GPS: 39.46722, −87.40750
History
Terre Haute, Indiana was by the early 1930s a city of approximately 60,000 people in the Wabash River valley, with a local economy built on coal, manufacturing, and the rail infrastructure that made it a regional distribution hub. When the Public Works Administration authorized a new combined federal building for Terre Haute in the early 1930s, the project went to the local firm Miller & Yeager, which delivered a design in the PWA Moderne style — the Roosevelt administration’s preferred architectural vocabulary for Depression-era federal construction. The PWA Moderne combined the stripped-classical massing of federal architecture going back to the Beaux-Arts tradition with the geometric ornament, smooth surfaces, and rectilinear details of Art Deco, producing a building type that projected both permanence and modernity without the ostentation that would have been politically untenable during the Depression.
The building was completed on December 1, 1934, and opened to its initial tenants in 1935: the main post office occupied the ground floor public spaces, while the FBI field office, the Internal Revenue Service, and the Social Security Administration occupied the upper floors. Social Security had only been established in 1935, making the building’s early occupancy by the new agency a marker of how rapidly the New Deal’s administrative apparatus was expanding into regional cities. The building served federal purposes for decades; it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. Following the federal agencies’ eventual relocation to modern facilities, Indiana State University acquired the building and undertook a $30 million renovation that preserved the exterior fabric and public interior spaces while adapting the building to academic use. The Scott College of Business moved in after the renovation’s completion in 2007, with regular classes beginning in Fall 2012.
What you see
The Terre Haute Post Office and Federal Building’s exterior exemplifies the PWA Moderne vocabulary at regional scale: a three-story block clad in limestone, organized with a formal entrance on one of the corner faces, and ornamented with the rectilinear incised panels and shallow relief friezes that distinguish the PWA Moderne from earlier Beaux-Arts federal buildings. The style’s characteristic features — smooth wall surfaces punctuated by geometric ornament, windows grouped in vertical registers separated by flat masonry piers, and a cornice line that treats the building’s top as a flat, unornamented plane — are all present and executed with the precision that characterizes the best PWA Moderne buildings of the mid-1930s.
The PWA Moderne was a self-consciously national style, applied from Maine to California under the New Deal building program, and buildings like the Terre Haute post office are among the most legible architectural markers of the New Deal’s geographic reach — the federal government’s physical presence in every city above a certain population threshold, expressed in a single recognizable vocabulary. That this particular example survived the pressures of demolition and suburban dispersal to be adaptively reused as a college building is both unusual and characteristic of the revival of interest in PWA Moderne architecture that NRHP listing and adaptive reuse together enabled beginning in the 1980s.
Practical information
- Now the Indiana State University Scott College of Business; the exterior and public lobby areas are accessible during academic year operating hours.
- The exterior is freely visible from the 7th Street and Cherry Street intersection at all times.
- Located in downtown Terre Haute approximately 4 blocks from the ISU campus center.
Getting there
The building is at the corner of 7th Street and Cherry Street in downtown Terre Haute, Indiana, approximately 70 miles west of Indianapolis on Interstate 70. The nearest commercial airport is Indianapolis International Airport (IND). Amtrak’s Cardinal and the former National Limited route through Terre Haute has no current stop; the nearest Amtrak service is at Indianapolis. By car, Interstate 70 passes through Terre Haute, with the US-41 exit providing direct access to the downtown 7th Street corridor.
Nearby
- Indiana State University — the main campus of Indiana State University is approximately 4 blocks from the building, with the Hulman Memorial Student Union and the main academic core of the campus accessible on foot
- Paul Dresser Birthplace — the childhood home of Paul Dresser, composer of “On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away” (Indiana’s state song), preserved as a historic house museum approximately 8 blocks south on South 1st Street
- Eugene V. Debs Home — the restored home of labor leader and five-time presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs, who was born in Terre Haute in 1855, approximately 5 blocks south at 451 North 8th Street
Sources
- Wikipedia: “Terre Haute Post Office and Federal Building”
- National Register of Historic Places, listing August 13, 1984
- Indiana State University: Scott College of Business (building history)
- Wikimedia Commons: Terre_Haute_Post_Office_and_Federal_Building.jpg, Public Domain
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