Antique Postcard Lake Charles: The U.S. Post Office
Geographic description:
This antique postcard Lake Charles view shows the city’s federal post office building, photographed from the street corner around which the structure is set. The building occupies a corner lot, and its two facades meet at a sharp angle in the composition, a layout typical of early twentieth-century public buildings raised on corner parcels in growing American downtowns. The architecture draws on a Mediterranean revival idiom, sometimes described as a mission or Italian-Renaissance influenced style, which was fashionable for federal buildings across the American South at the time: a low-pitched roof covered in red clay tile, wide overhanging eaves carried on visible brackets, and a light-colored stone facade suggestive of limestone.
On the ground floor of the main elevation, seen on the right of the card, three tall round-arched openings set the rhythm of the facade. Each is topped by a circular oculus window, and a painted sign reading “U.S. POST OFFICE” runs directly along the cornice separating the ground floor from the upper stories. The upper levels show rectangular windows aligned vertically, several of which, on the second floor, open onto small balconies with wrought-iron railings. A wide flight of steps leads up to the main entrance, where several figures can be made out, likely postal employees or members of the public.
To the left of the image stands a substantial palm tree, a planting choice consistent with the subtropical climate of southwestern Louisiana. An open touring automobile is parked at the street corner, and two women in long dresses and wide-brimmed hats cross the street in the foreground, near a small wood-frame house visible to the right, set back from the main building. Two handwritten captions have also been added at the bottom of the card, one on each side of the image: “Hodges St.” on the left and “Broad St.” on the right, indicating that the building stands at the intersection of these two downtown streets.
Historical description:
The printed caption at the top of the card, “Post Office, Lake Charles, La.”, identifies the depicted city without ambiguity: Lake Charles, the parish seat of Calcasieu Parish in southwestern Louisiana. The handwritten references to Hodges and Broad streets are consistent with the historical street layout of the downtown area and place the building at the junction of these two thoroughfares.
External research undertaken to verify this identification indicates that a federal building combining a post office and a courthouse was indeed constructed on this exact corner in the early 1910s. Work was completed in the spring of 1912: the ground floor, occupied by postal services, opened as early as March 1912, and finishing work on the rest of the structure was reported in the local press at the start of April that same year. Contemporary accounts describe the exterior as built of Georgia limestone, with Vermont marble used for the interior finish work, staircase, and steps, and a tile roof rising to a pyramidal point topped by a twenty-five-foot flagstaff. This description matches what the postcard shows closely: a light-colored facade, a tile roof with pronounced overhangs, and a flagpole visible at the peak of the building’s corner angle.
According to the same sources, the ground floor housed mail lock boxes near the Hodges Street entrance and stamp, money order, and registry windows near the Broad Street entrance, while the upper floor held the federal courtroom along with offices for several federal officials. This dual function, common for mid-sized federal buildings erected during this period across the United States, explains the scale of the structure relative to an ordinary local post office.
As for dating the postcard itself, independently of the construction date of the building it depicts, several stylistic clues point toward a reasonably narrow window. The white border framing the image is characteristic of postcards printed between the mid-1910s and the late 1920s, the period that followed the earlier “divided back” era. The open bodywork of the parked automobile, with no rigid side doors, is consistent with touring cars produced during the 1910s. The clothing worn by the two women, long dresses paired with wide-brimmed hats, remains consistent with feminine fashion of the mid-1910s. Cross-referencing these clues with the building’s 1912 completion date, it is reasonable to estimate that this card was printed and circulated sometime between roughly 1913 and 1920, while the building still appeared close to new.
This dating should be treated as a moderately reliable stylistic hypothesis: without a visible reverse side for this particular copy, no postmark, stamp, or dated handwritten note is available to confirm it with certainty. Should the reverse of this card become available, examining it could meaningfully refine this estimate. Likewise, no publisher’s mark can be identified anywhere on the front of the card: no photographic studio or publishing house credit appears in the visible margins, which suggests that a precise attribution would require further checking against Lake Charles municipal archives or specialized Louisiana postcard collections.
Finally, it is worth noting that the building shown on this card has since changed use: external research indicates that it now houses a law firm, while remaining recognizable by its largely preserved original silhouette.
