Architecturally speaking Vidalia's Municipal Building is something of a wonder; it is the only one of its kind. Originally it was to be the first of many of that same design, but according to a little know story, something happened to chage all that, and the happening affected architecture throughout the nation.

According to stories handed down by Post Office officials and local leaders there was a plan conceived in our nation's capital to replace many of the old wooden and store front post offices with new federal buildings, and to make their architecture uniform in appearance. Large offices were to be of one design; middle-sized offices of another; and small offices of still another. It would make the governament buildings distinctive in appearance, and save taxpayers money on architectural plans. Generally the idea was well received.

It was with increased interest that the Postmaster General, other high postal officials and governemnt leaders attended the dedication cremony in Vidalia for, if this story is true, Vidalia's Post Office was the first ever built by that plan.

The Post Office was a large square stucco structure squatting above five broad steps. Across the front were four very large round cement Greecian columns with doric capitals on the edge of the porch and two square pilasters in the back. In appearance it was similar to Robert E. Lee's imposing mansion in Arlington Cemetery. But there was on noticible difference. atop the roof was a raised skyling with six double windows in each of its four sides. The skylight which was needed to bring in ligh and air in those days before flourescent bulbs and air conditions spoiled the graceful effect.

According to the late Capers Rice, a former mayor of Vidalia, Postmaster General Farley was not at all pleased.

"Tear up the plans," he is reported to have ordered, "and forget that idea." That's how the Vidalia Post Office came to be the only one of its kind in the world.

In 1965 the Post Office vacated the building and move to a new leased building on Church Street. The Federal building was offered for purchase to the city for a city hall and to the library which was then located in a room in the city hall on Church Street (now a part of Belks). Neither had the money at the time to buy and renovate it. It was purchased by a local bank and rented out for a period as a discotheque for young people.

In 1975 it was purchased by the City of Vidalia, redesigned by the local firm Somers Construction Company and turned into a hansome municipal building. On the front in the pediment above the entrance is a beautiful metal seal of the State of Georgia, cast by the late Victor J. Montoya who had adopted Vidalia as his home.

Maybe it is because the eyesore windows in the top have been eliminated, or maybe it is because most of the other, more graceful Greek Revival houses of the town have passed out of existeance, whatever the reason Vidalia's present municipal building excites compliments from most viewers, and if the late James Farley were to see it, he too, would doubtless approve.