The United States Custom House (also known as the Old Customs House)"San Ysidro Land Port of Entry Improvements Project Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement Volume I", U.S. General Services Administration
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San Ysidro, San Diego San Ysidro ( Californio Spanish for for " St. Isidore", ) is a district of San Diego, California, immediately north of the Mexico–United States border. It neighbors Otay Mesa West to the north, Otay Mesa to the east, and Nestor and the Tij ...

, California, is a 1933

Spanish Revival The Spanish Colonial Revival architecture (), often known simply as Spanish Revival, is a term used to encompass a number of Revivalism (architecture), revivalist architectural styles based in both Spanish colonial architecture and Spanish archi ...

–style building located north of the

Mexico–United States border The international border separating Mexico and the United States extends from the Pacific Ocean in the west to the Gulf of Mexico in the east. The border traverses a variety of terrains, ranging from urban areas to deserts. It is the List of ...

at the

San Ysidro Port of Entry __NOTOC__ The San Ysidro Port of Entry (aka the San Ysidro Land Port of Entry or the San Ysidro LPOE) is the largest land border crossing between San Diego and Tijuana, and the fourth- busiest land border crossing in the world (second-busiest exc ...

. It is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

with the full historic name U.S. Inspection Station/U.S. Custom House and common name U.S. Custom House.

History

The Custom House was part of a large federal building program begun in 1926 during the

Herbert Hoover Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was the 31st president of the United States, serving from 1929 to 1933. A wealthy mining engineer before his presidency, Hoover led the wartime Commission for Relief in Belgium and ...

administration in which 1,300 new federal buildings were constructed. The building was designed by the Supervising Architect's office of the Treasury Department; construction was performed by Robert E. McKee of

El Paso, Texas El Paso (; ; or ) is a city in and the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, United States. The 2020 United States census, 2020 population of the city from the United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau was 678,815, making it the List of ...

, who was paid $93,800.Nomination form
for the National Register of Historic Places for the U.S. Inspection Station/U.S. Custom House, National Park Service Groundbreaking was in early summer 1932. In May 1933 the building was complete; it was quietly put into use without a formal dedication ceremony. As traffic increased at the crossing over the decades, an additional building was added north of the 1933 facility. That new building was then replaced by much larger inspection and customs facilities to its west, completed in 1974 and still in use. After a period during which the ground floor of the Custom House was left empty, the ground floor once again houses offices of

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE; ) is a Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement agency under the United States Department of Homeland Security. ICE's stated mission is to protect the Un ...

(ICE).

Significance

The building is considered important for two reasons, one political and one architectural. Politically, the building has played an important symbolic role in relations between Mexico and the United States at one of the busiest land border crossings in the world. Architecturally, it is considered a locally prominent example of the Spanish Colonial Revival architectural style as applied to a public building.

References

{{National Register of Historic Places Buildings and structures in San Diego Buildings and structures completed in 1933 Custom houses in the United States National Register of Historic Places in San Diego Mission Revival architecture in California Custom houses on the National Register of Historic Places Government buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in California