sentences:  It took its name from the mountain rising to its east, which had been the site of a bonfire pile meant to be lit as a beacon warning troops of the Continental Army in the valley if British ships were coming upriver in an attempt to retake it during the Revolutionary War.Its first post office was located at the corner of Main and North Cedar streets, two blocks west of the current location, in a building that, while constructed for that purpose, was only leased by the federal government.It was always the government's intention to own its post office building in Beacon, and in 1931 amendments to the Public Buildings Act authorized the construction of over a hundred post offices in New York, including the current building at the current site, as an early response to the economic hardship of the Great Depression.