• Post Office - Corning IA
    "In September 1937, the Adams County Free Press reported Corning was one of nine towns in the state to receive funds for a new Post Office building as part of a 'seventy million dollar emergency construction fund authorized by Congress' as part of the Works Project Administration. Postmaster A. C. Peterson received information from the United States Treasury on how to proceed in plans for the Post Office, which would be opened for bidding October 4 that year. "The contract was awarded to the Church Company in Kansas City, and construction on the $75,000 building began in early 1938. Prior to...
  • Post Office Mural - Corning IA
    This egg-tempera-on-gesso mural was painted by Marion Gilmore in 1941. From When Tillage Begins: The Stone City Art Colony and School: "Gilmore won the WPA commission to produce a mural for the town of Corning, Iowa. The jury, led by former Stone City faculty member Edward Rowan, demanded that Gilmore's image only contain actual architecture and landmarks in the downtown district. Her mural, 'Band Concert,' won the federal-sponsored Forty-Eight States design competition of 1939 and depicts a summer band concert in a small, Iowa community. Upon its completion, Rowan demanded that Gilmore remove two objects (a cannon and an obelisk) from...