Congress appropriated $212,000 in the fall of 1878 for the structure and the site.
The building, called the Government Building in Baxter's History, is often attributed to James G. Hill, Supervising Architect of the U.S. Treasury Dept. from August 1876-1883. Since the building was constructed during his tenure he would have been the supervising architect, technically, but the building was designed by William A. Potter. His 1876 design, shown in the American Architecture and Building News, does not include the Italianate brackets beneath the roof-line nor the gabled dormers. Those may have been added to the design by Hill. The pitch of the roof appears much steeper in Potter's version than the actual building but that may be due the angle of the photograph.
The Federal Building, which replaced the this building in 1909, was designed by Supervising Architect James Knox Taylor, 1897-1912. Later that building was occupied solely by the Post Office. It then became home to the Art Museum but as of 2008 stands empty. The same plans were used for a government building in Dayton, Ohio.
It appears that the prints were each hand-colored for the publication thus the difference in the coloration of the sky is apparent in version (2).