City Hall - Mill Valley Ca
Description
The Public Works Administration (PWA) provided matching funds for the construction of a new City Hall for Mill Valley in 1935-36. The city had already decided to replace an older city hall built on the same site in 1908 and had raised $30,000 through a bond issue in 1935.
The new City Hall housed city offices and council chambers, as well as the fire station and city police. The building was designed by architects D.E. Jaekle and Walter Falch in the Neo-Tudor style, which was one of many period revival architectures popular in the interwar period.
City Hall’s was heavily remodeled in the late 1970s, with three-story east wing addition, new elevator and stairwell, redesigned office space, enlarged restrooms and a lunch room. The fire and police departments also moved to their own buildings.
“However, there remain several original features, including the ceiling of the Council Chambers, the flooring in the lobby and some of the offices, the staircase with its mahogany banister and handrail, the multi-lite steel windows, and the brass pole at the fire station.” (Mapping Mill Valley)
In 2016, the structure was listed on the California State Register of Historic Places.
There seems to be a good deal of popular confusion over which New Deal agency paid for City Hall. It was the PWA, not the Works Progress Administration (WPA) as often mistakenly thought (e.g., Mill Valley Historical Review 2000, Bagshaw 1975 ).
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Mill Valley City Hall - Mill Valley CA
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City Hall - Mill Valley CA
Source notes
Chalmers, Claudine. 2005. Early Mill Valley. Charleston, SC: Arcadia.
The Architect and Engineer. January 1937.
Oral hitory of former Mill Valley mayor Thomas Frederick (Fred) Bagshaw, Mill Valley Public Library, 1975.
Mill Valley Historical Review, Spring 2000
Mill Valley Public Library, 2021, Mapping Mill Valley History (online resource at: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/c80806cf96954c99bcf3fa2259f5713c
Project originally submitted by Shaina Potts on June 29, 2008.
Additional contributions by Susan Ives.
We welcome contributions of additional information on any New Deal project site.
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