The St. Matthew's Station of the United States Post Office is one of the most significant historic buildings in downtown San Mateo. It has direct links to San Mateo's early days, before incorporation. Built to serve as the town's main post office, it is a monument to America's efforts to grapple with the Great Depression. For decades, the post office stood as the companion building to St. Matthew's Catholic Church, as the two institutions' buildings anchored the west side of the 200 block of Ellsworth Avenue for forty-seven years.
In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt launched the Work Progress Administration, later called the Work Projects Administration (WPA). Developed as a means of countering the devastating economic and psychological effects of the Great Depression, the WPA put people to work. Under the WPA, Americans constructed ten percent of the country's new roads, hospitals, city halls, court houses, schools, and civic buildings.
In San Mateo, these new buildings included the St. Matthew's Station of the United States Post Office. Although there had been a post office in San Mateo since 1861, the St. Matthew's Station had been built in 1935. Its gable-ceiling interior seems to look just the way the inside of a post office should look.
There are brass mail boxes in the lobby, and iron bars on the postal agents' windows. The walls are highlighted by three hand painted murals, drawn by the hand of depression-era artist Tom Laman. The murals depict early ranchero life in San Mateo. A wood carving by Zygmund Szaevich, entitled "Indian Maiden", greets customers from above the front entrance.
Its beige and tan, Mission Revival exterior includes the traditional tile roof, heavy wooden doors, arched windows frames, columned doors and transoms, and tile quatrefoil ornamentation. Although it seemed to be constructed to compliment St. Matthew's Catholic Church, postal service spokesperson Linda Martin says the US Post Office used Mission Revival architecture in the construction of many of the post offices at the time.
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