Mint Building

Mint Building. Charles R. Jonas Federal Building. , Here stood the first branch Mint of the United States. Built in 1836, the Mint was an imposing Classical Revival style building designed by renowned architect, William F. Strickland, it burned to the ground on July 27, 1844, but was reconstructed largely in keeping with Strickland's original design and reopened on October 1, 1846. The footprint of the original Mint is outlined in granite pavers on the front lawn of the Charles R. Jonas Federal Building. The Mint produced over five million dollars of gold currency through 1861, when North Carolina seceded from the Union. After the war, the Mint reopened as a US Assay Office. In 1891, a Romanesque Revival Post Office and Courthouse opened beside the Mint on the southwest portion of the site. In 1913, the assay functions were discontinued, and the 1891 Post Office was razed. On that site, the government built a new Post Office facility in 1916, the first portion of which would eventually become the Charles R. Jonas Federal Building. When the expansion of the new Post Office threatened the Mint, the citizens of Charlotte financed the relocation of the foundation of the structure to the Eastover neighborhood, where it was rebuilt and opened as the Mint Museum of Art in 1936., The 1934 addition to the Post Office, constructed in the Classical Revival style, tripled the size of the structure and reoriented the main axis of the building north to front on Trade Street. The structure that stands here today, the Charles R. Jonas Federal Building, formerly known as the United States Post Office and Courthouse, is one of the few historically significant structures remaining in Charlotte's central business district., Image courtesy of the Robinson-Spangler Carolina Room, Charlotte Mecklenburg Library