6. The Pacific Grove Post Office
680 Lighthouse Avenue

     

     

 

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Google Map of the Pacific Grove Post Office
     
 

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The post office building was built in 1938 and enlarged in 1967.   
 
The building is surrounded by eucalyptus trees that were once part of the garden of a house that stood at this site and were planted by Methodist Bishop William Taylor about 1880. He brought the gum nuts from Australia, where he preached from 1863-1865. Pacific Grove was begun as a Methodist retreat, so Taylor had good cause to have a home here.  
       
   
See Don Bain's fullscreen 360-degree panorama photograph of the Pacific Grove Post Office.  
   
       

 
  

Inside, there is a WPA-era mural of Lovers Point Beach, painted by Russian-born artist Victor N. Arnautoff (1896-1979).

See paintings by Arnautoff on the Spencer Jon Helfen Fine Arts gallery website.

See another photo of the Pacific Grove mural on a website dedicated to WPA post office murals.

See more murals by Arnautoff at the Homer Avenue: Palo Alto's Corridor of History website.

  
Ed Ricketts maintained a post office box (#448) here, even after he moved his business to Monterey, and kept it up until the time of his death in May 1948.  
Continue on Lighthouse, and on your left, between 18th and 17th Streets is the . . .

SITE OF THE OLD METHODIST CHURCH