Frederick Forster conducted the New Ulm Pottery here with Frances Gommel and also served as Postmaster. The building functioned as a combined pottery works, Post Office, and dwelling, and in 1862 it became a very important defense outpost. During the Second Battle of New Ulm, Henry Swift, future Governor of Minnesota, and about twenty men were assigned to defend it. Colonel Flandrau wrote that a number of the men took possession of the brick Post Office and loopholeed it in all stories and through the roof, protecting much of the rear of the town. Although the building stood outside the barricaded area, its defenders repulsed all Indian advances and held it to the end of the fight. It is one of the few buildings remaining from the time of the Uprising, and though its exterior walls have been covered with stucco, it remains essentially unchanged.