McGehee Post Office

Located at the corner of North Oak and Second Streets in McGehee (Desha County), the former McGehee Post Office is a historic building constructed in the Colonial Revival style in 1937. It was used until a new post office was built in 1999. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 19, 2010.

Incorporated in 1906, the community that would grow into McGehee dated to 1857 when Benjamin McGehee and his family moved to the area. His son Abner purchased the land that would become the town in 1876. With the establishment of the Little Rock, Mississippi River and Texas Railroad in 1878, McGehee capitalized on the opportunity and opened a commissary along the route, which also passed through his land. The following year, a post office was established at the commissary site and led to a steady increase in the local population.

The site where the post office was built in 1937 originally housed a wood-frame schoolhouse, predating the incorporation of the town. The McGehee First Methodist Episcopal Church was organized in the school building in 1905 and then the structure became a private home. It was relocated to make room for the McGehee post office to be built on the site.

McGehee was chosen as the site of a permanent post office in 1936. After the selection of the site, the government paid $4,500 for the lot, and the home was moved away from the site in mid-December. The bid accepted for the construction came from the company of A. Farnell Blair of Lake Charles, Louisiana. The total amount appropriated for the construction and equipment housed in the building was $66,000, and the construction bid was $43,979. Work began in early April, and the building was dedicated on September 18, 1937, by U.S. Senator John B. McClellan. The Colonial Revival architecture of the building provides a visual contrast with the commercial buildings that surround it.

Constructed of red brick, the north-facing building rests on a brick foundation. The building is accessed by granite steps that lead to double aluminum doors flanked by single fluted Doric columns. A segmented arch above the doors has a gold eagle between the doors and the arch, and two circular images appear on either side of the entrance. The left side has a copy of the seal of the United States, while the right includes a representation reminiscent of the back of a one-dollar bill with a pyramid and eye. Four twelve-over-twelve windows are on the front of the building, and the roof is topped with a cupola.

The building received an addition in 1963, with bricks, windows, and other details designed to closely replicate the existing structure. A new post office building was constructed in 1999, leading to the closure of the old post office. Located only about 700 feet away from the old post office building, the new post office continues to serve McGehee in the early twenty-first century. Purchased by the McGehee Industrial Foundation, the old post office building continues to anchor a major commercial street in the downtown area.

For additional information:
“McGehee Post Office.” National Register of Historic Places registration form. On file at Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, Little Rock, Arkansas. https://www.arkansasheritage.com/docs/default-source/national-registry/de0287-pdf.pdf?sfvrsn=d8f06b62_0 (accessed November 20, 2024).

McGehee Times (McGehee, Arkansas), April 30, 1936–September 23, 1937.

Silva, Rachel. “Walks through History: Downtown McGehee.” Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, September 13, 2014. https://www.arkansasheritage.com/docs/default-source/ahpp-documents/sandwiching-tour-scripts/mcgehee_tour_script_201417d17f3f-b5be-40d2-8d38-10d0fb72e17e.pdf?sfvrsn=124f0866_5 (accessed November 20, 2024).

David Sesser
Southeastern Louisiana University