The Winnsboro Post Office was built in 1936 on Prairie Street in downtown Winnsboro, Louisiana. The structure is typical of many post offices built across the country during the Depression, rock solid and with materials meant to withstand the test of time. Its downtown location made it the hub of economic activity for generations of Winnsboro residents.

In 1998, a new post office was built “out on the highway” and the structure sat empty for several years before a local group of interested folks recognized the urgency to preserve the building for future generations. They then convinced the City of Winnsboro to spend $75,000 to purchase the building in 2001, and got a little lucky with a state appropriation of $300,000 seven years later to renovate the structure, which officially opened as the Old Post Office Museum in October, 2010.

Since then, our old post office building has become a very impressive art venue, with alternating gallery exhibitions year round by artists from the area and across the South, with a focus on the young artists in our local schools. And, the permanent historic exhibits feature old and interesting artifacts from across the parish, including a huge Louisiana flag hand painted by prisoners from the state prison and presented to then governor Huey P. Long.

After a near-death experience, our old post office building came back to life and is thriving under the watchful eyes of those who love the building and what it represents. The original hardwood floors, which had been covered for years under two layers of plywood and vinyl flooring, were uncovered during the renovation, revealing wood which came from maple trees harvested in Michigan over 80 years ago. Many of the planks have “Winnsboro” stamped in blue letters on the bottom side. A visitor can both see and feel the worn spots in those floors from the years and years of tending to postal business behind the counters that literally thousands of people walked up to.

The mural of a logging scene in a swamp painted by Datus Myers that so many grew up seeing has been restored thanks to the United States Postal Service. The mural, roughly four feet high and 15 feet long, is one of some 2,000 murals in the 40,000 post offices across the country. According to a 1939 Federal Works Agency news release, Myers was a painter and art teacher in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and was commissioned by the Section of Fine Arts of the Federal Works Agency “as a part of the established program to provide new federal buildings with appropriate works of art by American artists.”

With help from the USPS, a restoration specialist from Wisconsin peeled the mural, which was on a thin layer of painted canvas, from the wall. He took it north in 1999 and painstakingly restored the work of art, mounted it on a heavy frame, and brought it back to Winnsboro in January, 2001.

After nearly ten years of dragging the restored mural from place to place to get it out of the way of various events staged in the building both prior to and during restoration, it’s now back where it belongs – up high and to the right when you walk in the front door. The restoration of the old post office building was, in a sense, inspired by the unique odyssey of that mural, which is unlike any other found in an old post office in the United States. It forms a perfect backdrop to the art

Today, the building serves as the base of operations for the Winnsboro-Franklin Chamber of Commerce, Winnsboro Main Street, Franklin Parish Economic Development, and the Franklin Parish Tourism Commission. These groups partner together and share expenses so that they can all have a home, as well as a “buy in” to the historic old building that is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Museum is also one of the three “crown jewels” that anchor the arts district in historic downtown Winnsboro. The Princess Theatre, a true community theatre just two blocks from the old post office, was saved from the ravages of neglect and revitalized back in the 1990s by a core group of concerned citizens. In addition, the Franklin Parish Library, its adjoining Learning Center, as well as the recently opened Genealogy and History Center, is also located midway between the post office and the theatre on Prairie Street.

For a small, rural northeast Louisiana town of 5,000 in one of the more economically depressed areas of the country, the building known locally as “the old post office” in Winnsboro stands as a testament to hard work and a vision, and is an exemplary model of the continued utilization and repurposing of former federally owned structures.