Fallon City Hall added to National Register of Historic Places list

Less than two months after making it on the state's list of historic places, Fallon City Hall has been added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Along with the city building, the Virginia and Truckee Locomotive No. 27 was also named to the register, State Historic Preservation Officer Ron James announced Wednesday.

Fallon's City Hall was designed by Reno architect Frederick DeLongchamps in the Spanish Colonial Revival style that was popular at the time. Construction began on City Hall in 1930, and was finished in 1931. Its grand-opening ceremony was held on April 4, 1931.

State architectural historian Mella Harmon said the building is a significant marker of an important time in the state's and the nation's history.

"The building is important because it represents the growth and development of Fallon as a result of a national irrigation program aimed at making the arid far West more productive and open to settlement," she said.

The building has changed some over the past 73 years. Aside from renovation work to brighten up the place, City Hall's tower, on which the local fire department hung its wet hoses, was far taller 50 years ago ago.

The tower was damaged by the massive seismic activity of 1954, and eventually rebuilt several feet lower.

City officials say state historic preservation officials are now looking at Fallon's old post office on North Maine Street as another possible "historic place." The city bought the brick building across from the historic Churchill County courthouse in the 1980s for $60,000, according to the city clerk's office.

Cory McConnell can be contacted at cmcconnell@lahontanvalleynews.com