Father Pitt

Why should the beautiful die?

Old Mount Oliver Post Office

The post office in Mount Oliver has been peripatetic if we take a long-term view. It began a few doors north of here on Brownsville Road in a little brick building later replaced by a furniture store. In about 1905, this substantial “flatiron” building went up at the complicated intersection of Brownsville Road, Amanda Street/Avenue (the border between Mount Oliver, which calls it an avenue, and Pittsburgh, which calls it a street), Bausman Street, Sherman Avenue, and Hays Avenue.

From a 1905 Hopkins plat map. Note the “P. O.” at the corner of Murry Alley, and this triangular building marked as “New P. O.,” suggesting that it was under construction when the map was drawn.

Now the post office is in a much larger modernist building two blocks up Brownsville Road. But this building still stands in reasonably good condition.