Post Office Mural, Anadarko, OK
Posted by: 
hykesj
N 35° 04.445 W 098° 14.637
14S E 568929 N 3881519
This mural by Native American artist Stephen Mopope, was one of five post office murals depicted on postage stamps issued in 2019.
Waymark Code: WM148WF
Location: Oklahoma, United States
Date Posted: 05/19/2021
Views: 8
During the Great Depression, the WPA (Works Progress Administration) undertook hundreds of public works projects putting thousands of unemployed laborers to work. Many of these projects were post office buildings. In addition to manual laborers, artists were also employed to add ornamentation to the buildings. For the post office buildings, this usually took the form of a mural painted in the lobby. Between the years 1934 and 1943, over a thousand of these murals were produced.
In 2019, the U.S. Postal Service chose five of these murals to portray on a set of postage stamps. Among them was this one called “Kiowas Moving Camp” located in the lobby of the Anadarko Oklahoma post office. The Anadarko post office was itself a WPA project built in 1935. It doubled as the Kiowa Indian Agency of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and though that agency has since moved out of the building, the name is still present, engraved in stone on the building’s east side.
The Anadarko post office boasts not one, but 16 different murals all designed by Stephen Mopope. They show various aspects of Kiowa life on the central plains. The one depicted on the stamp shows the Kiowas moving camp in order to follow a migrating herd of bison which was one of their food staples.
Stephen Mopope was himself a member of the Kiowa people and a prolific artist. He was part of a group of Kiowa artists known as the Kiowa Six. Two other members of that group assisted Mopope in painting the post office murals: Spencer Asah and James Auchiah.
Stamp Issuing Country: United States
Date of Issue: 10-Apr-2019
Denomination: (55c)
Color: multicolored
Stamp Type: Single Stamp
Relevant Web Site: [Web Link]
|
Visit Instructions:
To post a visit log for this category, you must visit the actual site of the waymark. Post at least one photo that you personally took of the site if at all possible. If you cannot provide a photo for some reason, your visit will still be welcome.
You do NOT need to be a stamp collector to visit the waymark site, nor do you have to provide a photo of the stamp. Just having a copy of the stamp in question, however, is not sufficient; you must personally visit the site.