Beach Center Station

Beach Center Station, or the Main Street Post Office, at Main and Olive in downtown Huntington Beach opened in 1935 with banners, speeches and music. As one source commented, “It was a proud, patriotic moment. Telephones were not yet common and a modern post office meant we were officially connected to the rest of the country. We were worthy of an important federal service.” It was designed by Louis A. Simon and built by L.F. Dow of Los Angeles as a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project. The building’s architecture is considered a “restrained” style, with the minimal ornamentation preferred by the U.S. Treasury Department at the time. It has been identified by the USPS as a valuable piece of real estate that could be sold more than once, but so far continues to serve the community in its original purpose.

Huntington Beach, Orange County
Photographer: Andrew Schmidt