The Milton Post Office on North Front Street was built in 1934 during the Great Depression after nine years of effort that began in 1925 and years of controversy between Milton community leaders and the U.S. Government. The post office had originally been on the west side of South Front Street south of Lincoln Park in a building shared with tenants including the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. After approval in 1931 during President Herbert Hoover's administration, Milton civic leaders Penn Hastings, Harry Chamberlain, and Walter Wilson made numerous trips to Washington D.C. to press for an Art Deco building superior to that of any town comparable in size to Milton. Architect Harry Sternfeld secured the use of oversized custom-made bricks and a special plaque over the entrance showing a map of Milton, the West Branch of the Susquehanna, both islands, the great seal of the United States, the points of the compass, and two Indian heads, and he also won approval for the words Milton, Pennsylvania, above the revolving doorway. Postal authorities refused, however, to fund carved stone images of the history of mail service on the parapet, so Walter Wilson personally paid for carvings of the pony express, a truck, plane, locomotive, and ship. The building's location had divided townspeople, with one faction favoring Front Street and another the corner of Elm and Mahoning Streets, but it was ultimately erected on the site of two homes and the former J.R. Smith building. Before the J.R. Smith building, the site had held the Presbyterian Church and the Academy of Music before the 1880 fire, and nearby had stood Gov. James Pollock's mansion where the Elks Club is now located.