Smaller than most other small Colonial Revival Depression-era post offices in New York, the Goshen design does not appear to have been duplicated elsewhere in New York as others were (such as Suffern's and Waverly's). Valkenburgh's other New York post office, in Catskill, another small Hudson Valley county seat, is distinctly different. The building does, however, share with some other contemporary Colonial Revival post offices, such as Dobbs Ferry and Hudson Falls its fine detail. Those buildings, too, share steep gable roofs, ornamented ends and classically inspired entryways. Goshen's first post office was built shortly after the Revolution. Over the years it was operated from several different buildings in the village. The current building was one of many authorized by Congress in a 1931 amendment to the Public Buildings Act of 1926, when it expanded the scope of the program in response to rising unemployment at the start of the Depression. Funds were not appropriated until 1934. The site chosen, across from what was then the Erie Railroad station (now the headquarters of the village police department), had been vacant since the St. Elmo Hotel (built 1887) burned down in 1920. In November 1934 it was condemned by the Treasury Department, the Post Office's then-parent agency. Samuel Plato was awarded the $85,000 ($ in contemporary dollars) contract and construction of the new building was completed in early 1936. Klitgaard's mural was added the following year. Postal murals of the era were supposed to focus on local history and contemporary life, but the Treasury Department's Fine Arts Section strongly objected to her intention to paint the track, since it considered harness racing to be an inappropriate subject for public art, asking her to paint a local landscape instead. The community indicated its strong support of the track, and she was allowed to paint it. There have been few modifications to the building since then, primarily in the rear portions of the interior. In 1978, a wheelchair access ramp was built on the front.