{"nrhp_refnum":"88002488","name":"US Post Office-Dunkirk","other_names":["Dunkirk Post Office"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"410 Central Ave.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Dunkirk","county":"Chautauqua County","state":"NY","lat":42.48173739100008,"lon":-79.33333106599997,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1988-11-17","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Politics/Government","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A two-story brick post office at 410 Central Avenue in the commercial center of Dunkirk, Chautauqua County, New York, designed and built in 1928-9 for the U.S. Treasury Department.","why_significant":"The nomination calls it an intact, representative example of early twentieth-century federal architecture in New York State and a distinctive small-scale Colonial Revival public building. It reflects the standardized, cost-conscious post office design adopted under Acting Supervising Architect James A. Wetmore. It is nearly identical to the Fort Plain Post Office.","narrative":"Dunkirk's post office at 410 Central Avenue is a two-story, symmetrical brick building with a one-story rear wing, completed in June 1929. The front facade has a shallow projecting frontispiece with four brick pilasters topped by limestone Corinthian capitals and a pedimented entablature. Inside, the public lobby has plaster walls, wood wainscoting, marble baseboards and a terrazzo floor. The federal government bought the site in 1914, but construction money was not appropriated until 1928. William McDonald Construction Company of St. Louis built it. Plans came from the Treasury Department during James A. Wetmore's time as Acting Supervising Architect, when small post offices followed standardized plans, materials and ornament. The Colonial Revival style, with multi-paned windows, classical details and recessed brick panels, was widely used for post offices in the 1920s and 1930s. The building is almost identical to the Fort Plain Post Office and is part of a statewide group of post offices. It remains in postal use.","period_of_significance":"1900- (specific dates 1928-9)","architect_builder":"James A. Wetmore, Acting Supervising Architect; built by William McDonald Construction Company, St. Louis, Missouri","architectural_style":"Colonial Revival","criteria":[],"status_note":"Listed as occupied, in good condition and altered; the form says the building retains integrity on both exterior and interior, and its present use is government.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:50:45.355416-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NY/88002488.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/88002488/51d5f2114d-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/88002488/51d5f2114d-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 2.0","author":"Doug Kerr from Upstate New York","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dunkirk_Post_Office_Nov_09.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Doug Kerr from Upstate New York</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 2.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dunkirk_Post_Office_Nov_09.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/75312267","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Post_Office_(Dunkirk,_New_York)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7890941"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/new-york/chautauqua-county/us-post-office-dunkirk-88002488/"}