The Lititz Post Office

 

The Lititz Post Office was established in February of 1806, fifty years after the founding of the Moravian community. Christian Hall, who arrived in Lititz from Bethlehem, Pa., was the first postmaster.  Hall’s post office was located in a small area of the Zum Anker Inn (now the Lititz Springs Inn). When the first post office was established, the town was named Litiz, as the majority of the citizens were of German descent.

In 1830 Frederick Zitzman, son-in-law of Johannes Mueller, the town dyer, added a wood-frame structure to Mueller’s house and used it as a post office. This replaced the one at the Zum Anker. Zitzman remained in this position until 1849.

From 1849 until 1901, as the small Moravian community was expanding, the post office was located in several available buildings in town. Then in 1901, Dr. James Brobst, an influential Lititz businessman, built a three-story building in the first block of East Main Street. The first floor of the Brobst Building housed a new, modern post office for the town’s ever-expanding volume of mail. During this time, five rural routes were added. The Lititz Post Office remained on this site until 1940.

Once again, the volume of mail outgrew the space in the post office in the Brobst Building, and it became necessary to build a larger facility. A lot was chosen at the corner of East Main and South Cedar Streets.  On Saturday, October 19, 1940, a dedication for the new Lititz Post Office was held. Rev. Byron Horne of the Moravian Church gave the invocation, and Dr. Herbert Beck, Moravian Church archivist, gave a historical sketch of Lititz.

In 1941 the postmaster of the Lititz Post Office received word from the Treasury Department of the U.S. Government that the town’s post office was chosen as one of many public buildings to receive high quality artwork from a renowned artist. This was part of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal: national and regional art competitions that eventually placed more than 1,200 original art works in post offices, 88 in Pennsylvania.

Joseph Nicolosi, an Italian immigrant, was chosen to carve wooden reliefs for the interior of the post office in Lititz. By researching the history of the town, Nicolosi chose to carve “The Moravian Communion – Lititz Springs Picnic.” Four five-foot tall wood figures were hung in the lobby: a gentleman with a picnic basket and water pitcher, a minister serving communion to a congregant, and a woman holding a candle and a water pitcher. These reliefs symbolically represent the founding of the town in 1756.

Fortunately the historic wooden reliefs in the Lititz Post Office are in excellent condition.

by Charlene Van Brookhoven, Church Square Journal, Fall 2011