Culver Post Office History  

115 - William W. Baker - 1930 residence

117 - Walker's Boarding House - ? - 1930 of the Walker boarding house is known:

Mary L. Walker, proprietor 1930. It is said that this house was moved to another part of town.

Post Office Force Takes Pistol Target Practice The Culver post office force believes in peace, but it also likes the idea of being prepared, so the members have been holding session on the pistol range, practicing with .45 pistols so that if any bandits visit the office a warm reception will result.

In 1938, with the installation of her mural in Culver, Jessie Hull Mayer began a one-post-office-per-year-schedule that lasted through 1941, an enviable record by any standard.

Her first invitation to submit sketches came as the result of placing second in the design competition in 1936 for the Lafayette post office, a competition won by her husband Henrik Martin Mayer. Late in 1936 Edward B. Rowan wrote her to asking if she and Henrik were related since they lived at the same address. In what today we night view as a sign of the time, Jessie responded on 5 October:

Although I regret not winning this job my self, it is perhaps better for the peace of our family that you did not award it to me, because I am Mrs. Henrick Martin Mayer."

The official letter from the Section inviting Jessie to submit designs for Culver was sent on 30 Decmebr 1936, and on 8 January 1937 she wrote back to washington:

"The invitation of the Section of Painting and Sculpture to submit designs..was the first mail I received in 1937, and will keep me cheered up for the whole year."

The approved project is unique in the Indiana panoply of murals, for this is the only mural with a central panel flanked by six side panels with related bu singular designs. Rather than trying to cram one panel with all the elements important to and appropriate to the Culver area, Mayer chose to show the unity of the major constituents; the townspeople, the farmers, the military aceademy in the middle panel, with the ancillary activities in the side panels. Interesting enough, however the Section had little commentary on the side panels except to suggest once that the color of the central panel could be enlived "by the introduction of some of the reds used in the outer panels.

In a 13 May letter Rowan did suggest that:

"it would be a courtesy if you would present four design to the Postmaster in Culver for his comments although the design has been approved in this office."

This little aside comment focuses on a continuing concern faced by the artists, the Section (and indirectly the staff of the Procurement Division of the Treasury), and the local postmasters; who had the final say over the content and/or acceptability of a painting? ...

When the newspaper atricle appeared at the same time of the mural's installation, no one seemed to question the appropriateness of the design. Virginia Moorhead Mannon, writing in the 19 February 1938 edition of the Indianapolis Times, began her commentary of Culver with a reflection upon the mural as part of the decor.

When the inhabitants of Culver and its environs saunter into their neat little postoffice today they'll find a startling change in the hitherto blank wall pace of the postmaster's door. Adding considerably to the Federal decor is a colorful mural depicting "The Arrival of the Mail", the work of Mrs. Henrick Mayer, young Indianapolis artist. Mrs. Mayer, who was commissioned to do the painting as a U. S. Treasury Department project, rolled up the canvas and tool it by truck to Culver yesterday.

Then Mannon witched to the standard explication provided by a section presse release:

The mural, which is 10 1/2 feet long and 4 1/2 feet high, consists of a large center panel with smaller panels at either end. The center figures, two-thirds life size, include two cadets reading letters, two postal employees bending over the mail bags, and a farmer and summer residents calling for mail. Six smaller studies picturing activities around the lake - agriculture, camping, swimming, Culver Military Academy, sailing and riding - represented in the narrow side pannels.

The coloring of the canvas is designed to blend with the cream-colored wall, the pinky-grey marble wainscotting and dark brown woodwork of the postoffice interiot. The warm gray running through the study harmonizes with the blue-gray of the mailman's attire and the absolute gray of the cadets uniforms...

"The Arrivial of the Mail": is the first mural painted by the young atrist, who received B.F.A. at Yale in 1932. It represents a year's work with stready painting from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily during the past two months.

Jessie Hull Mayer completed murals for Jasper Indiana - Farming Scene in Late Autumn, in 1929; for Cannon, Missouri - Winter Landscape, in 1940; and for LaGrange Indiana, - The Corn School, in 1941.
On March 7, 1938, the Culver Postmaster wrote to Washington, D. C., to inform the Section of Fine Arts that Jessie Hull Mayer, an Indianapolis artist, had cemented a 10' x 4' oil painting to the lobby wall of the post office. Tho as evidenced by the article above Mayer actually had placed the mural on the wall three weeks earlier, but the Section commissions were not "officially" completed until the local postal official wrote to confirm that everything was finished

Carlisle states that the correspondence file on Mayer in the National Archives does not reveal whether she visited Culver or even corresponded with the Postmaster before choosing the content of the mural.

Culver Becomes First-Class Post Office! Culver gave further evidence of its fine growth potential on July 1 when Postmaster Fletcher T. Strang made the long awaited announcement that the local post office had on that date become a first-class office.

In a visit to The Citizen office Tuesday morning Postmaster Strang gave credit to three local institutions whose increased activities pushed up the annual total of postal receipts to the point of necessary to bring about this recognition and rating.

Mr. Strang specifically mentioned The State Exchange Bank, the Culver Military Academy, and The Culver Press, Inc. printers and publishers, as largely responsible for this happy situation. He also mentioned as a factor the wide use of six-cent air mail stamps by individuals.

The Culver post office has grown steadily since Mr. Strang was appointed postmaster in 1934. The receipts of $18,000 of that year now have grown to more than $41,000 yearly. The biggest mailing in local history was on Dec. 17, 1954 when 12,218 pieces of first class mail were posted. An average normal day is between 1,000 and 1,200 pieces.

Postmaster Stang modestly refers to the success and growth of the Culver post office as the result of the spendid teamwork and cooperation among the 12 employees of the staff.

Culver is the only other first-class post office in Marshall County aside from Plymouth. It serves more than 1,000 delivery patrons in addition to the several hundred cadets and faculty members at Culver Military Academy.