LONG BIO
David W. Gates Jr. earned his Bachelor of Art degree from DePaul University. For the past fifteen years he has supported the information technology infrastructure at several organizations. During this time he has also shown a heavy interest in our nations post offices. David has traveled thousands of miles nationwide taking pictures of post offices and documenting his findings. Originally meant to be a memento of his travels, his project has blossomed into a blog, social media followers and award winning books.
In 2011 David started the blog www.postofficefans.com as a way of sharing his experience photographing and documenting post offices. He shares what is often times amusing events he encounters photographing the buildings, corner stones, artifacts and murals. As interest in these buildings and art have increased, David is compelled to raise more awareness of them. More importantly is his desire to see that all the art is accessible as it was meant to be when they were commissioned. Part of this mission includes creating books to assist in educating the public about these wonderful buildings and works of art.
David’s quest has lead to several trips to the National Archives in Washington D.C., and many hours digging through websites and existing books. With all this research and his photographs in hand David wrote his first book Wisconsin Post Office Murals. One goal of writing the book is to bring more awareness and celebrate one of our Nation’s treasures. In David’s own words “I can’t be the only one who likes these things”. After further research there is evidence that in fact he is not the only one interested in historic post offices and murals.
In addition to working on the Wisconsin Post Office Murals book, he has also performed research in other states. His work revels that not all the murals exist, having been destroyed or lost over the years. In addition, not all the murals remain in their original intended locations.
The Federal Government commissioned over 1,100 works of art for new post offices to be built during the Depression years. Join David in his quest to visit them all.
MEDIUM BIO
David W. Gates Jr., is a post office enthusiast and award wining author who has traveled thousands of miles photographing hundreds of post offices nationwide. He blogs about this work at www.postofficefans.com.
The Federal Government commissioned over 1,100 works of art for new post offices to be built during the Depression years. Join David in his quest to visit them all.
David lives in Crystal Lake, Illinois.
SHORT BIO
David W. Gates Jr., is a post office enthusiast and award wining author who has traveled thousands of miles nationwide in search of historic post office buildings and art.
He blogs about his work at www.postofficefans.com. To his surprise and after more than 86 years in existent, he discovered how often they are overlooked. Those that are aware, have very little knowledge of how they were developed or who the artists were that created them.
The Federal Government commissioned over 1,100 works of art for new post offices to be built during the Depression years. Join David in his quest to visit them all.
