This is one of my favorite buildings in Denver. When I was going to college, I used to enjoy coming here to buy stamps to mail letters because it is such an impressive building. It is now renamed the Byron R. White United States Courthouse which is the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. Public access is now restricted for the safety and security of the staff and public involved in legal proceedings.
"By 1900, Denver was a major transportation crossroads and a significant western commercial city. The monumental 1893 U.S. Post Office was already considered outdated, leading the people of Denver to seek a new, larger building for the Post Office and Federal Courts.
Authorization for a new building was approved as early as 1903, but funds were not appropriated until 1908. In 1909, Office of the Supervising Architect of the Treasury Department James Knox Taylor selected New York architects Tracy, Swartwout, and Litchfield to design Denver's new Post Office and Courthouse. It was one of only thirty-five Federal buildings built during Taylor's tenure (1883-1912) that were designed by independent architects commissioned by the U.S. Treasury Department under the Tarsney Act. Passed in 1893, the Act authorized the Treasury Secretary to use private architects, selected through architectural competitions, to design Federal buildings. The Act reflected the growing demand for greater architectural standards for public buildings and opened the way for additional appropriations to maintain those standards.
Construction began in 1910, but progress was slow due to insufficient funds. The initial appropriation of $1,500,000 was supplemented with an additional $400,000 as a result of Denver Postmaster Joseph H. Harrison's lobbying effort in Washington, DC. The building opened in January 1916.
Clad in Colorado Yule marble, the material used for the exterior of the Lincoln Memorial and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, in Washington, DC, the U.S. Courthouse is set above the street on a rusticated base. A series of grand stairs lead up to the main entrance on the southeast elevation (Stout Street), which is marked by sixteen, three-story, Ionic order columns adorned with eagles. The secondary elevations incorporate similar, but less pronounced, engaged Ionic columns. Set above the third story, a decorative band of medallions and eagles form the base of the large ornamental cornice.
The frieze above the main entrance has city names, with cities located east of Denver inscribed to the east of the central bay and those located to the city's west inscribed to the bay's west, symbolizing the flow of mail across the country. The solid marble walls on either side of the colonnade are inscribed with the names of former U.S. Postmaster Generals. Inscriptions selected and designed by architect Evarts Tracy mark the secondary elevations of the building. The frieze facing Eighteenth Street reads "Lex Nemini Iniquum, Nemini Injuriam Facit" (Cicero, "The law causes wrong or injury to no one"), and the Nineteenth Street side reads "Nulli Negabimus, Nulli Differemus, Jutitiam" (the Magna Carta, "To no one shall we deny justice, nor shall we discriminate in its application"). Marble seats on the northeast and southwest sides of the building are inscribed, "Alternate rest and labor long endure," and "If thou desire rest, desire not too much." "
In 1994, it was renamed in honor of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Byron R. White (1917-2002) a native of Fort Collins, Colorado. (
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Excerpted from Wikipedia (
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