Confidence Hall is a historic Italianate Style, Victorian brick building in Placerville, El Dorado County, California. The building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) on January 4, 1982.
Confidence Hall | |
 Confidence Hall (L) and Jane Stuart Building (R) are both part of the same NRHP listing. | |
  Confidence Hall  Confidence Hall | |
| Location | 487 Main St., Placerville, California |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 38°43′47″N 120°47′59″W / 38.72972°N 120.79972°W |
| Built | 1860 |
| Architect | Booth & DeVoe |
| Architectural style | Italianate Style, Victorian |
| NRHP reference No. | 82002174 [1] |
| Added to NRHP | January 4, 1982 |
History
editThe building was originally constructed as the Confidence Engine Company No. 1, a volunteer fire brigade.[2] The brigade began as the Mountaineer Engine Company on May 22, 1857, but changed their name in June after they purchased a used fire engine called "Confidence" and found they were unable to remove the engraving.[3][4] The original engine hall had been damaged by fire in September 1860, and the present building was built in fall of the same year.[3] The fund-raising balls held by the company were very popular.[2] In the late 1890s, the building was used for early meetings of Placerville's Seventh-day Adventist Church.[5] The building has also served as the police department, jail and a justice court.[6] When the El Dorado County Fair used to rotate the location of the event, Confidence Hall was one of its venues in Placerville.[7]
In 1902, the building became Placerville City Hall.[8] The Placerville City Library, the first public library in the county, was established in the upper floor of the building in 1906.[9] The space was shared by the Placerville City Clerk's Office and separated by a gate which was opened only after the Clerk had finished his work. The library remained there until 1947.[10] It remained Placerville City Hall until 2005.[6]
The adjacent structure with a wooden balcony, the Jane Stuart Building, was built in 1861 and is on the inventory of the NRHP listing. Immigrant Jane Stuart funded its construction by driving a herd of horses across the Great Plains and selling them to a local dealer.[8] The two buildings share a common wall and an internal hallway and door and have been used as a single tenant office building. The buildings have an estimated 6,360 square feet (590 m2), which does not include an unfinished basement and an upstairs loft area.[6]
After the Placerville City Government moved to a new city hall in 2005, the buildings, zoned for a broad range of uses, went on the market for over $1 million, but remained unsold and were repriced in June 2009 for $799,000.[6]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. March 13, 2009.
- ^ a b Ford and Ellen Osborn, Day Trip #1 - Exploring Main Street Placerville Archived 2002-07-04 at the Wayback Machine, El Dorado County Visitors Authority, May 2002, Accessed August 2, 2009.
- ^ a b Sioli, Paolo (1883). Historical souvenir of El Dorado County, California. Oakland, California: P. Sioli. p. 217. ISBN 978-0-9658763-2-2. Retrieved August 2, 2009.
- ^ Fire District History: Placerville Archived 2009-01-07 at the Wayback Machine, El Dorado County Fire District, Accessed August 2, 2009.
- ^ History, Placerville Seventh-day Adventist Church, Accessed August 2, 2009.
- ^ a b c d Asking price drops on old City Hall[permanent dead link], Mountain Democrat, June 14, 2009, Accessed August 2, 2009.
- ^ History of El Dorado County Fair, El Dorado County Fair, Accessed August 2, 2009.
- ^ a b Elliot H. Koeppel, Placerville City Hall/Jane Stuart Building, The Virtual California Gold Country: Highway 49 Revisited Online, 2000, Accessed August 2, 2009.
- ^ History of El Dorado County Library Archived 2007-01-13 at the Wayback Machine, El Dorado County Library, Accessed August 2, 2009.
- ^ History of the Main Library in Placerville Archived 2009-07-12 at the Wayback Machine, El Dorado County website, Accessed August 2, 2009.