Step 2: How to make an application to the National Register of Historic Places

1. In what county is Coldwater Post Office located?  Google is a great help with this – Mercer County.
2. What’s the property’s address?  Again, Google has this information:  Address: 101 E Main St, Coldwater, OH 45828
3. What is the name and address of the owner?  The structure of the  United States Postal Service means that this Post Office is a federally owned building.   Some Post Offices are leased but not this one.
4. If you’re not the owner, have you been in contact with the owner?  The USPS can help us with this too.  They have a Post Master finder that will look up post masters by city.    Frustratingly, for a time we had a name but no contact details.   The telephone number given is a generic USPS number and won’t get through to the Coldwater Post Office.   We did find another post office website that gave the Post Master’s email address and contact telephone number.  This did the trick.
   

   Diane M. Sekas

   Postmaster

   03/23/2013

5. Briefly describe the structures.  This was an intimidating request because my background in architectural terms is very informal.   Using the photographs that we found online, I was able to try and describe what I saw.    This will be an area that I need to improve on when it comes to the actual National Register Application.
6. Draw the floor plan.  I was able to find a floor plan by going to the Mercer county auditor’s website.  The county auditor can provide a wealth of fascinating information for your National Register Application.  There is so much to say about this that i will devote the next blog post to that subject alone.

 

Step 2: How make an application to the National Register of Historic Places