Port Angeles Federal Building 138 West First Street, Port Angeles, WA 98362 Architect: Wetmore, James A; Louis A. Simon Constructed: 1931 - 1933 Nat'l Register ID #: 83003321 GSA Building #: WA0028ZZ

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Statement of Significance

The Port Angeles Federal Building, completed in 1933, is architecturally and culturally significant. Its construction followed almost 30 years of civic effort to obtain a federal building in the city. Constructed originally to house a US Post Office and various federal agencies, today it stands as a well-preserved example of a classically derived "mongrel". The exterior facade is a combination of Georgian, Federal and Renaissance Revival styles.

HISTORIC CONTEXT

Located at the mouth of the Straits of Juan de Fuca, Port Angeles is protected by a natural sandspit that extends across the waterfront of the city. The city of Port Angeles, now the commercial center of the Olympic Peninsula, was originally a sandy refuge discovered by early Spanish, Greek and English explorers in their search for trade routes, gems and fabled passages. It was named by Spanish explorer Francisco Eliza in 1791. He called it "Puerto de Nuestra Senora de los Angeles" or "Port of our Lady of the Angels". The first white settlers arrived in 1857 and soon began trading with the Hudson Bay Company located across the Strait at Victoria, British Columbia.

Port Angeles has the distinguished characteristic as having been once the "second national city", Washington, D.C., being the first. This distinction is largely due to the efforts of Victor Smith, a special agent of the US Treasury from 1861 to 1862. Smith persuaded President Abraham Lincoln to sign an executive order designating the two townsites of Port Angeles and Ediz Hook a federal reserve for public use, reserved for a lighthouse and military purposes. A second executive order directed that the 3,520 acres should be withheld from "sale or location of any kind whatsoever." It was on a portion of the designated federal reserve that the present Federal Building was constructed.

Creation of the federal reserve, however, restricted settlement in the area. In 1889, when the Washington territory achieved statehood, many of the region's settlers moved from the shore areas into the reserved timberland to live as "squatters". The town won election as the seat for Clallum County in 1890. In 1891, President Benjamin Harrison signed legislation opening up the reserve for individual sale. After a formal land survey was completed in 1893, and land parcels were auctioned for a minimum of $5.00 in 1894, the official government reservation was ended.

The industrial era in Port Angeles, fueled by the timber industry, has its origins in the collaboration of the Milwaukee Railroad and Crown Zellerbach Corporation in 1912 to service the demand for lumber in California and abroad. As the pulp and paper, plywood and related forest product industries expanded, the town of Port Angeles continued to grow.

Ironically, the "second national city" did not have a federal building when it was designated. In 1913, the first efforts were made to secure a federal building for the town. It was not until 1931, following World War I, that a site for a federal building was finally chosen from one of the few plots still held in the federal reserve. At that time, Congress allocated $130,000 for construction of a new US Post Office and Federal Building.

The first post office was established sometime around 1860, when Port Angeles was a small trading post. In 1862, the first official postmaster was appointed. Mail was brought in by canoe or sailing sloop, and distributed over the counter at a small store. Occasionally, the mail was delayed as poker-playing captains deliberately ran aground on the sandspit to finish a game. Until the construction of the new federal building, the Port Angeles Post Office did not have a permanent home. It moved from building to building as the post masters changed and as the service outgrew its existing facility.

The size of the federal building was determined by the size and the annual postal receipts of the community. For Port Angeles, a small community somewhat isolated from a larger regional center, the facility contained a main post office as well as office space for federal agencies. The primary function of the building, though, was to provide postal service to the community.

Plans and specifications for the building were prepared and dated 1931. Seattle and Everett contractor, A.D. Belanger, was selected as contractor, and the ground-breaking took place in February 1932. Because the site for the new building was occupied by a "squatter", the citizens of Port Angeles pooled efforts to construct a new residence for the squatter who then vacated the site and gave up all claim to it. The cornerstone was laid on July 30, 1932, by Masonic dignitaries, and the building was officially opened on March 25, 1933. It was completed for a construction cost of $124,807 and included furnishings valued at a little over $5,000. As the Port Angeles Evening News reported on opening day, the "decades of endeavor and never-dying hope" of the citizens of Port Angeles, has culminated in "an edifice of richness and beauty."



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