Heraldry in High Point, North Carolina, Part 3

Strolling a few blocks south down Main Street from the Veterans Memorial, there’s a great Art Deco building that used to be the United States Post Office. Built in 1932, it’s now commercial space, but in addition to many of its Art Deco features (for those of you who really like that style), there are several eagles over the doorways and some of the windows with an odd variation of the arms of the United States.

(Purists among you may also note that the eagle is grasping three arrows in each of its talons, unlike the “official” eagle supporter of the arms of the U.S., where it is grasping an olive branch in its dexter talon and thirteen arrows in its sinister talon.)

The arms of the U.S. are Paly of thirteen argent and gules, a chief azure. Here, the chief has been rounded (enarched) to base, and a circle of thirteen stars has been placed on it, mimicking the canton of the earliest official U.S. flag, with its circle of thirteen stars.