[Illustration: {uncaptioned}]
The postoffice is a noble building, filling half a block on P street
between Ninth and Tenth. But, mysteriously, filtered thru a
picture-taker’s lens it takes on the appearance of a toy model still
sitting on the architect’s desk. This is most deceiving. It is really a
handsome and majestic building, of Bedford stone, standing very
massively on its green lawn.
It isn’t just a postoffice, as you learned when you were initiated into
the Income Taxpayers lodge. Also, if you want to ask how about that
money you’re going to get from Uncle Sam when 65, how about a loan for
putting up a hog house, how about keeping the black dirt on your farm
from drifting into the Missouri, how about enlisting in the army or
navy, you go to the postoffice—and also the FBI will reach out from the
postoffice and get you if you don’t watch out. If the United States
wants to try you for some federal offense, that’s where the trial will
be. Having steered clear of this court, the only case we recall offhand
is the Nye committee hearing in the Grocer Norris senatorial case.
The first federal court was held in November 1864, in a log building on
the south side of O between Seventh and Eighth. Elmer S. Dundy was the
judge. The postoffice was run by Jacob Dawson in conjunction with a
grocery in the front end, so that office and courtroom were enlivened
with the smell of codfish, coffee and tobacco. Somewhere within the log
cabin and between the codfish and the cases at bar Mr. Dawson kept
house—it may be with the help of a Mrs. Dawson, but one can read early
histories of Lincoln from preface to index without finding mention of a
woman, so thoroly was the sex still in subjugation.
The postoffice began taking on dignity in 1879 when it moved into its
new building on government square, now the city hall. The first section
of the present building was put up in 1906; the last, which made it the
impressive edifice it is today, only a year or two ago.