1938 Lincoln County Courthouse | |
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| Location | 1 Main St., Pioche, Nevada |
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| Coordinates | 37°56′13″N114°27′2″W / 37.93694°N 114.45056°W Coordinates: 37°56′13″N114°27′2″W / 37.93694°N 114.45056°W |
| Built | 1938 |
| Architect | Worswick, A. Lacy; Dow, L.F., |
| Architectural style | Art Moderne (PWA Moderne) |
| NRHP reference # | 02000820 |
| Added to NRHP | July 25, 2002 [1] |
The 1938 Lincoln County Courthouse is an Art Moderne style building in Pioche, Nevada. The 1938 courthouse replaced the so-called "million-dollar courthouse" built in 1871, whose last payment on the approximately $800,000 it cost was coincidentally made in 1938.
Pioche is an unincorporated town in Lincoln County, Nevada, United States, about 180 miles (290 km) northeast of Las Vegas. U.S. Route 93 is the main route to Pioche and bypasses the town center just to the east, with Nevada State Route 321 and Nevada State Route 322 providing direct access. Its elevation is 6,060 feet (1,850 m) above sea level. Pioche is the county seat of Lincoln County. It is named after François Louis Alfred Pioche, a San Francisco financier and land speculator originally from France. The town's population was 1,002 at the 2010 census.
In 1937 Lincoln County began to receive the proceeds of a major boom in lead and zinc mining that ran through the 1950s and provided a major portion of the county's tax revenues. As the old county courthouse deteriorated, sentiment grew to replace it, resulting in a 1937 bond issue. At the same time the county received a grant of $26,800 from the Public Works Administration toward 45% of the cost of a new courthouse. The PWA money carried conditions, one of which was a close review of the design. A modern look was preferred, to the point that a simplified Art Deco-Art Moderne style became known as PWA Moderne. The new courthouse was designed by Las Vegas architect A.L. Worswick in this taste. [2]
Public Works Administration (PWA), part of the New Deal of 1933, was a large-scale public works construction agency in the United States headed by Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes. It was created by the National Industrial Recovery Act in June 1933 in response to the Great Depression. It built large-scale public works such as dams, bridges, hospitals, and schools. Its goals were to spend $3.3 billion in the first year, and $6 billion in all, to provide employment, stabilize purchasing power, and help revive the economy. Most of the spending came in two waves in 1933-35, and again in 1938. Originally called the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works, it was renamed the Public Works Administration in 1935 and shut down in 1944.
PWA Moderne is an architectural style of many buildings in the United States completed between 1933 and 1944, during and shortly after the Great Depression as part of relief projects sponsored by the Public Works Administration (PWA) and the Works Progress Administration (WPA).
After an initial bidding process in which all bids were above the $60,000 budget, a second bid in 1938 produced a low bid of $49,347. The bidder, L.F. Dow of Los Angeles and Las Vegas, completed the courthouse in 1939. The building has served as the county courthouse, jail, county sheriff's office and state office building ever since. [2] It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002. [1]
Los Angeles, officially the City of Los Angeles and often known by its initials L.A., is the most populous city in California and the second most populous city in the United States, after New York. With an estimated population of four million, Los Angeles is the cultural, financial, and commercial center of Southern California. Nicknamed the "City of Angels" partly because of its name's Spanish meaning, Los Angeles is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic diversity, Hollywood, and the entertainment industry, and sprawling metropolis.
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance. A property listed in the National Register, or located within a National Register Historic District, may qualify for tax incentives derived from the total value of expenses incurred preserving the property.
