Coudersport Post Office icon details local history

Most people who pass through the Coudersport Post Office fail to notice the unique piece of art that hangs on the lobby's southern wall. Created from a plaster cast, the work shows three woodsmen with some of the tools of their trade. With passenger pigeons -- once plentiful but now extinct -- flying all around them. Federal regulations prohibit postal officials from dusting the artwork.

Coudersport Postmaster Steve Sevinsky and long-time employee Leonard Snyder were busy surveying the post office lobby with an eye toward making improvements Monday when one of their regular patrons interrupted with a suggestion.

"You could start by dusting that off," he said, point to the large paster mural mounted prominently on the lobby's southern wall.

"Sorry, but we can't," Snyder replied. "Federal regulations."

Actually, the dust lends a special quality to the rare and valuable artwork that was mounted on the wall back in 1939. Since then, the three hardy woodsmen -- unnoticed by many -- have looked down over tens of thousands of customers.

First-class stamps cost three cents at the time. World War II was about to erupt. More than 17 percent of Americans were looking for work.

"Gone With the Wind" was debuting in Hollywood and Albert Einstein had written to President Franklin D. Roosevelt to suggest the use of uranium to initiate a nuclear chain reaction -- leading to the first atomic bomb.

On Saturday afternoon, Feb. 16, the three woodsmen took their place as a tribute to Potter County's lumbering heritage. It was part of a U.S. Treasury Department plan to decorate certain federal buildings with murals and sculptures.

Ernest Lohrman was commissioned to create the Coudersport piece, depicting woodsmen who attacked the virgin timber as passenger pigeons, plentiful in the late 1800s but now extinct, flitted in the nearby woods. The artwork was produced with a plaster cast and Lohrman was paid $780 for his work.

Lohrman, who was a professor of art and history at Meriden College in Connecticut, took great pride in his work. He researched the lumber era to properly depict the equipment and attire of the woodsmen. He also visited the Museum of Natural History in New York City to view a taxidermist's rendition of the passenger pigeon.

On Feb. 16, 1939, Lohrman traveled to Coudersport to personally supervise the installation of his work, which has remained on the wall, untouched, ever since.