Pull open the front doors and pass through security of the unassuming three-story U.S. Western District of Texas Courthouse at 800 Franklin Ave., and you’ll find yourself face-to-face with two large wooden carvings hanging from the wall.
Carved from Texas gum wood by renowned New Mexican sculptor Eugenie Shonnard in 1939, they depict the Waco Indians and cattle on the Chisholm Trail. They’re an incredible work of art in their own right, however, they connect Waco to a much larger history that spans the United States.
The Spanish Renaissance influenced the architecture of the federal courthouse and former post office. It hints at an era when the federal government invested heavily in infrastructure, public institutions, and bringing world-class art to the public. Today, the building stands as a testament to the success of the New Deal and contributes to the Waco Downtown Historic District. The United States Postal Service listed the building for sale with the intention of leasing the courthouse space back to the General Services Administration. U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions has indicated that he supports the government retaining ownership of the building and the courthouse remaining in Waco.
According to the USPS, when the Postal Service anticipates transferring ownership of a Postal Service building containing New Deal Art Collection artwork, the Federal Preservation Officer will take steps they deem appropriate to safeguard such artwork. The artwork may be relocated to another Postal Service facility, may remain in place under a loan arrangement with the new building owner, or may be relocated to a non-postal location under an agreement with a governmental or private museum, library, arts center, historical society, or similar nonprofit organization.
Eugenie Shonnard had recently lost a competition to create a post office sculpture in Alaska when she was awarded the job in Waco. In a 1964 interview with the Smithsonian Institute, Shonnard recounted the events leading up to the Waco commission. Projects for mail carriers were being given throughout the whole country, and Shonnard had been selected for an Alaska Snowshoe Carrier sculpture. While conducting research for her sketch, she reached out to an archeologist who had worked with indigenous Alaskans.
The archeologist told her that postal workers delivered mail using dog sleds and only resorted to snowshoes in an emergency. Shonnard submitted a sketch of a mail carrier and dog, but ultimately lost the competition. Edward Rowan, the man in charge of commissioning artwork for the Public Works Administration, later told Shonnard that he didn’t understand the dog and that she would have won if she had adhered to the guidelines. Realizing the government had made an error in how mail was delivered by snowshoe, Rowan awarded Eugenie Shonnard the Waco project without competition.
During the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Public Works Agency and later, the Works Progress Administration, to help mitigate the economic crisis. Across the country, more than 1,100 post offices were constructed, about triple the number built in the previous 50 years.
A proposal was submitted to Washington for a two-story post office at 800 Franklin Ave. In May 1935, city leaders met with Congressman O.H. Cross at the Capitol to lobby for a larger building. On June 6, 1935, architect W.H. Schimmelpfennig submitted the final U-shaped design consisting of a post office on the first floor, offices on the second, and a newly added third-floor courtroom in the style of “Spanish Renaissance, with strong Mexican feeling.”
More than 1,000 pieces of artwork, the majority of which are murals, adorn the walls of these post offices – collectively, they are the nation’s largest public art project. Fifty-seven murals and three wooden reliefs are scattered across Texas.
Before the first survey marker was laid for the courthouse on Dec. 3, 1935, Waco had already benefited from the New Deal. A year earlier, the 18th Street viaduct was constructed over Waco Creek and the adjacent railroad tracks, moving traffic off the 17th Street bridge built in the 1920s. Only a few blocks away, the federal government was busy building the Waco Municipal Stadium at Fifteenth Street and Dutton Avenue simultaneously as the downtown post office. The same agency that commissioned the post office and courthouse built the all-white East Waco Junior High School in 1939, later renamed G.L. Wiley. Together, the four projects and others have helped weave the fabric of daily life for generations of Wacoans.
