Existing comment:
A New Deal in Town
The Silver Spring Post Office
Silver Heritage Georgia Avenue
Silver Spring During the Civil War
If you has used our post office between 1937 and 1981 you would have seen a mural depicting a possible Civil War scenario.
Opened on March 1, 1937, the Georgian Revival style Silver Spring post office at 8412 Georgia Avenue was the first Federal building constructed in Montgomery County. Inside the lobby was a 5' 11" x 15' 11" oil-on-canvas mural titled The Old Tavern, by Nicolai Cikovsky. This artwork was a product of the U.S. Treasury Department's Section of Painting and Sculpture, created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal administration to incorporate murals and sculpture in new post office construction. The purpose of the program was to employ out-of-work artists and educate the American public about their culture and history.
The mural depicts Civil War Union soldiers who have picked up their mail at the Eagle Inn, a tavern that stood on the corner of Georgia Avenue and Colesville Road. When Cikovsky was asked about the inclusion in the mural of an African-American soldier, seen holding his rifle in one hand and a letter in the other, his reply was "...he is intended to symbolize the result of the Civil War -- namely the liberation of his race." As a matter of fact, over 209,000 African-Americans joined the Union Army to serve during the Civil War. This mural now hangs in the Silver Spring Library.
Total Recall:
Artist and Russian immigrant Nicolai Cikovsky interviewed 79-year-old Blair Lee, former U.S. Senator (D-Md.), born here in 1857. Lee had many memories of what the community, then named Sligo, looked like. the main crossroads of Sligo were Washington & Brookeville Turnpike and Ashton, Colesville & Sligo Turnpike (Georgia Avenue and Colesville Road). The Eagle Inn, on the right side of the mural, stood on the southwest corner of this intersection.
Removed from the Silver Spring post office in 1981, the mural was located by Silver Spring Historical Society founder Jerry A. McCoy in 1994. When postal employees unrolled the mural for the first time, it was covered with Japanese tissue paper to protect the painting's surface. Friends of the Silver Spring Library raised $25,000 to conserve the mural, rededicated at the Silver Spring Library July 7, 1997. |