Topeka's downtown U.S. Postal Service building, which was the site of events that included an FBI shootout and hearings in a historic federal court case, will soon enter the next chapter in its history.
Tim Hrenchir, the "History Guy" for CJOnline, returns Thursday with a short video about the structure at 424 S. Kansas Ave. The building became fully operational on Dec. 9, 1933, as a post office, federal courthouse and administrative office building.
Four days earlier, the United States had ratified the 21st Amendment, ending Prohibition and putting a cork in plans to house a prohibition office at the building.
The post office lobby in 1937 became the scene of a gun battle between federal agents and two men suspected in a bank robbery, one of whom shot and killed 27-year-old FBI Agent W.W. Baker.
The two men were convicted of murder, then hanged together in 1938 at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary.
The post office building during the early 1950s became the site of federal court hearings in the Brown v. Board of Education case, which brought about the historic 1954 Supreme Court ruling that banned racial segregation in schools.
Federal officials stopped using the building as a courthouse in 1977 after constructing the Frank Carlson Federal Building across the street to the east at 444 S.E. Quincy.
The U.S. Postal Service announced in 2014 that it was seeking to sell the building.
The Topeka Capital-Journal learned last month that the postal service was in the final stages of making that sale, which hasn't yet been finalized. The newspaper reported the buyer is from out of town but has local ties.
Want more History Guy videos? Find them all at http://www.cjonline.com/news/history-guy.