| Address: | 101 North 5th Street Muskogee, OK 74401 | County: | Muskogee |
| Started: | Completed: | 1938 | |
| Agencies: | WPA | NRHP: | Original Bldg |
Current Usage:
Description:
New Deal funds enabled an addition to the U.S. Post Office and Courthouse in Muskogee.
“The U.S. Post Office and Courthouse is an excellent example of the Classical Revival style. Containing five floors plus a basement, the building gives the appearance of only four stories. In 1937-1938, an addition was constructed on the back of the building, and the former storage space on the fifth floor was converted to office space. The upper four floors are organized around a lightwell with corridors ringing the lightwell on the north, east, and south sides. Office space is off the corridor away from the lightwell except on the west side of the building. During the 1938 expansion, the west corridor was moved west, away from the lightwell, to allow for the construction of additional office space immediately adjacent to the lightwell. The limestone-clad walls support a low-pitched, hipped roof covered by a single ply, white membrane over the original building and a flat, asphalt composition roof over the 1938 addition.” (NRHP Text)
Now known as the Ed Edmondson U.S. Courthouse, the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000 and “serves as a government office building and federal courthouse for the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma.” (wikipedia.org)
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Craig, Lois A and the Staff of the Federal Architecture Project. The Federal Presence: Architecture. Politics and National
Design. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1984.
Department of Geography. “Reconnaissance Level Survey of a Portion of Muskogee.” 1998. On file at the State Historic
Preservation Office, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Douglas, Colonel Clarence B. The History of Tulsa. Oklahoma: The City with a Personality. Tulsa, Oklahoma: S. J. Clarke
Publishing Company, 1921.
Ford,JeanetteW. “Federal Law Comes to Indian Territory.” The Chronicles of Oklahoma. 58:4 (Winter 1980-1981): 432-
439.
Foreman, Grant. Muskogee: The Biography of an Oklahoma Town. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press,
1943.
Gibson, Arrell Morgan. Oklahoma: A History of Five Centuries. 2nd Edition. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma
Press, 1981.
Kellough, William C. “Power and Politics of the Oklahoma Federal Court.” The Chronicles of Oklahoma. 65:2 (Summer
1987): 182-213.
Kolva, H.J. and Steve Franks. National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation Form, “Historic U.S.
Post Offices in New Mexico 1900-1940.” September 1988.
Letter to Honorable R.L. Williams. Dated 25 February 1932. On file at the Oklahoma Historical Society Research Library,
Muskogee Vertical File.
The McAlester (Oklahoma) News-Capital. 26 May 1913, 21 July 1913, 6 July 1914.
McMath and Dortignacq, Architects. “Historic Building Preservation Program, U.S. Federal Building – Courthouse.” 1994.
The Muskogee (Oklahoma) Times Democrat. 12 December 1905, 28 June 1906, 6 July 1906,13 January 1908, 17 January
1908,18 February 1908, 19 February 1908, 6 March 1908, 20 May 1908, 23 July 1908, 11 September 1908, 26 March
1909,20 May 1909,15 June 1910,17 January 1911, 7 February 1911,18 September 1911, 14 November 1914,23 February
1915, 5 March 1915, 6 April 1915, 27 April 1915,15 September 1915,25 September 1915, 26 November 1915,27
November 1915,19 August 1937 and 20 June 1938.
Shirk, George. Oklahoma Place Names. 2nd Edition. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1981.
Richards, W.B. The Oklahoma Red Book. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma: Secretary of State, 1912.
Ummel, Larry and Cynthia Smelker. National Register of Historic Places Nomination, “U.S. Post Office and Courthouse in
Chickasha, Oklahoma.” 1994. On file at the State Historic Preservation Office, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
The WPA Guide to 1930s Oklahoma. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1986.
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