Oklahoma City City Hall - Oklahoma City OK

City:: Oklahoma City, OK
Site Type:: Civic Facilities, Auxiliary Civic Facilities
New Deal Agencies:: Public Works Funding, Public Works Administration (PWA)

Description

The Oklahoma City Municipal Building was constructed in 1936-37 with funding from the Public Works Administration (PWA) and a City bond issue.

“Oklahoma City is the capital and largest city of the State, having a population of 185,389 in 1930.

The new municipal building provides quarters for all of the commissions and departments of the city government except the police department and the court which are housed in a new jail building, which was built at the same time and as part of the same P.W.A. docket.

The structure is fireproof throughout with a steel and concrete frame, the exterior walls being select buff limestone, backed up with brick, and a considerable quantity of ornamental metalwork appears on the main-entrance facade.

It was completed during February 1937 at an approximate cost of $663,000. The jail building, constructed at the same time, brought the cost for the two buildings to $853,000.”
(Short and Brown)

“City Hall – the Municipal Building – is the historic ‘capitol’ of Oklahoma City government.

The Municipal Building was built in 1936 as part of a civic improvement program. It cost $585,257, paid for with a WPA [sic] grant and a municipal bond issue.

The Municipal Building is part of a larger Downtown area originally known as Civic Center, and was part of a comprehensive City plan developed by Hare & Hare, a well-known Kansas City-based architectural and planning firm of the 1920s and 30s…

City Hall houses the offices of the Mayor, City Council, City Manager, Municipal Counselor, City Clerk, City Auditor and Public Information and Marketing.

It also houses the Action Center and the City Print Shop.

City Hall also contains a broadcast control room for City Channel 20, the City’s government access cable channel…

The elegant art deco motifs on the east and west entrances inspired the City’s logo, adopted in 2004.

Seven varieties of marble were used for the interior, and original decorative accents have been preserved on each floor.

Of particular interest are the shell stone-topped marble wainscots. The focal point of the lobby is an inlaid Travertine marble compass…”
(www.okc.gov)

Source notes

1) C.W. Short and R. Stanley-Brown. "Public Buildings: A Survey of Architecture of Projects Constructed by Federal and Other Governmental Bodies Between the Years 1933 and 1939 with the Assistance of the Public Works Administration." (1939). 2) https://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMJZAF_Municipal_Building_Oklahoma_City_OK 3) WPA-sponsored book, A Guide to the Sooner State, 1941 4) https://www.ocgi.okstate.edu/shpo/nhrpdfs/07000521.pdf https://www.okc.gov/city_hall/index.html