Nevada City / Architecture

Nevada City Firehouse No. 1 (1861)

Discovery of gold in 1848 brought people from around the world to California. By 1850, Nevada City, California was home to 10,000 people. The town grew quickly and became an important city in the state. With the gold mining industry dwindling, population decreased and the town was struggling financially.  

In the 1960s and 70s hippies and back-to-the landers moved in and brought new attention and commerce to a sagging Gold Country downtown that was half full of empty stores. At the same time, city leaders were early in recognizing that historic preservation could be the foundation of a strong tourist trade.

The entire gold rush era downtown district is on the National Register of Historic Places. The Nevada City Downtown Historic District is the largest and most representative collection of downtown commercial buildings in the area of the Northern Mines and is noted as the most complete gold town left in California.  Read more here. 

The town is thriving today.

The Nevada Theatre, or the Cedar Theatre, is California's oldest existing theater building. The theater opened in 1865. George Pierce was the builder. the first performance was the John Poole two-act comedy entitled The Dutch Governor. Silent films were screened as early as 1908, and the theater underwent a remodel in 1909, retrofitted as a movie house. A slanted floor and electric lights were added in 1915. It still operates as a theater today.

City Hall, 1878

Source: Nevada City, by Maria E. Brower

Did you really think this was going to be a post on Victorian architecture?  

Here is the Nevada City City Hall (1937) by George C. Sellon. WPA funding was used to construct the building, which replaced the 1878 facility seen above. 

Here's another one by George C. Sellon, the Nevada County Court Hosue.

The original courthouse on this site was burned in a fire in 1856. It was rebuilt as a two story granite and brick building in Greek Revival style. The courthouse burned again in 1863, and some of the brick from the structure was used in the Masonic Hall. It was again rebuilt in.1864 as a two-story structure. In 1900 a third story was added.  In 1937 the present Art Moderne facade was added. 

A 1945 view of the town, with the courthouse sticking out like a moderne sore thumb.

Source: Nevada City, by Maria E. Brower

 In 1964 an annex was added. The architecture firm was Mau & Barnum.

It looks great from this angle.

In 2009 the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) determined the courthouse to be "unsafe, substandard, overcrowded and functionally deficient" and it was under threat of demolition. It appears to be safe for now.

The transition could have been a little more thoughtful.

1940 Non-Contributing is how the building is listed in the 1985 National Register of Historic Places inventory. I like it, although they should figure out how to get rid of those news racks.

When the old Armory Hall was sold to Purity Stores in April, 1940, by the Nevada City Eire Department, it was torn down by members of the Bethany Church in Grass Valley who used the lumber for a new church. Younger Brothers of Oakland, California, erected a one-story quonset-hut-type building that - identified a Purity market. The building extends along Bridge Street from-Broad to Spring Streets where, because of the difference in elevation, it becomes a two-story building with a shop on street level and an apartment above. (National Register of Historic Places)