The 1938 Lincoln County Courthouse is an

Art Moderne Streamline Moderne is an international style of Art Deco architecture and design that emerged in the 1930s. Inspired by aerodynamic design, it emphasized curving forms, long horizontal lines, and sometimes nautical elements. In industrial design ...

style building in

Pioche, Nevada Pioche is an unincorporated town in Lincoln County, Nevada, United States, approximately 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 ...

. 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. 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 In finance, a bond is a type of security under which the issuer (debtor) owes the holder (creditor) a debt, and is obliged – depending on the terms – to repay the principal (i.e. amount borrowed) of the bond at the maturity date as well as i ...

. At the same time the county received a grant of $26,800 from the

Public Works Administration The 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 Reco ...

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 Art Deco style, which originated in France just before World War I, had an important impact on architecture and design in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s. The most famous examples are the skyscrapers of New York City including the Em ...

. The new courthouse was designed by

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Veg ...

architect A.L. Worswick in this taste. 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 Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...

and

, completed the courthouse in 1939. The building has served as the county courthouse, jail, county sheriff's office, and state office building ever since. It was placed on the

National Register of Historic Places 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 or "great artistic ...

in 2002.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lincoln County Courthouse, 1938 Courthouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Nevada Government buildings completed in 1938 County courthouses in Nevada Buildings and structures in Lincoln County, Nevada Streamline Moderne architecture in Nevada Historic American Buildings Survey in Nevada PWA Moderne architecture National Register of Historic Places in Lincoln County, Nevada Lincoln County Courthouse