Post Office Mural - NHR

The former Valentine United States Post Office, constructed in 1936-37, is a one-story, brick and limestone
Modernistic style building. While the building retains a high degree of integrity, its national historical significance derives
from the mural painted on an interior wall.

Through New Deal programs such as the Public Works of Art Project and the WPA Federal Art Project,
thousands of artists were employed. In 1934 the Section of Painting and Sculpture (renamed the Section of Fine
Arts in 1938) was organized under the auspices of the Treasury Department to provide murals and sculpture for
the many federal buildings constructed during the New Deal era.

Between 1938 and 1942 the Treasury Department's Section of Fine Arts (generally known as "the Section")
commissioned twelve murals for twelve newly constructed post offices in Nebraska. Valentine, along with the
other eleven post office murals in Nebraska represent the Section's goal of making art accessible to the general
population by reserving one percent of new building construction budgets for art.

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