Imperial County CA Archives History - Books .....Architecture 1918 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ca/cafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com February 15, 2006, 9:08 pm Book Title: History Of Imperial County California CHAPTER XVII ARCHITECTURE BY SAMUEL BLAIR ZIMMER NO ONE expects Class A buildings in a new community, nor is the art feature ever highly developed in such a locality. We must consider things relatively, and it is great progress that has been made here, and the beginning is at hand for "cities beautiful" that may easily be realized in the time to come. From the formal opening of the Valley in 1900 until 1907 the development was from tent houses up to characteristic cheap frontier structures. Building materials were very high priced, owing to high freight rates, and very little money was available for buildings on account of the extreme necessity for improving the land. During the year 1907 quite an activity in building began and rapid colonization made it desirable to provide suitable schools and public buildings for a people intent on permanent residence. The cost of building material made it necessary to use local products as much as possible, and this necessarily limited the art impulse. But in a short time there was an improvement in this respect, and in 1908 the Valley launched out in a manner that produced as good a class of buildings as could be expected in a new country, building many creditable school buildings in country districts and grammar school buildings in the towns. In 1909 the Imperial Union High School district erected at Imperial a good high school building which in design and arrangement ranks with the best in the state for its size. In 1910 the Holtville Union High School district followed with a similar well-constructed high school building. In 1911 El Centro Union High School district built a high school unit which has been added to up to date at a total cost of about a quarter of a million dollars. Brawley and Calexico Union districts have also built fine high school buildings, bringing the total investments in high school buildings in the valley to about $700,000, all being strictly modern structures. The grammar school buildings in all of the Valley cities are of the best designs and well laid out for the work intended, while most of them are built of durable materials. There are three Carnegie public libraries in the Valley, at Imperial, El Centro and Calexico, all of which are well-designed structures, and each city is well provided with church buildings for several denominations. Each town has made ample provision with fine hotels for the accommodation of the stranger. The famous Barbara Worth Hotel in El Centro, begun in 1913, would be a credit to any city. One and two-story store buildings in the retail districts of the Valley cities have arcades over the sidewalks and are wide spreading in design. Some of them have fronts of handsome design, which the merchants so trim as to make effects and displays equal to large city stores. Among the store buildings of importance are the Anderson building in Calexico, which cost $75,000, and the Auditorium building in the same city, which cost $50,000. They are both of reinforced concrete and of good design. The industrial district of El Centro contains several handsome reinforced concrete buildings, notable among them being a model creamery, the largest west of the Missouri river. The residence districts in all of the Valley cities are being built up with handsome bungalows and some good residences costing from $10,000 to $15,000. Most of these are typical of California cities, while others have extensive screened porches and screened sleeping rooms, adapted to a warm climate. Imperial County built a temporary court house at El Centro, the county seat, in the central part of the city, in 1908, where county business still is being transacted, but the county has a five-acre tract on West Main Street, on which now is being constructed a jail building at a cost of $90,000. This is a modern, fire-proof, reinforced concrete building. It will be a unit in the future permanent court house, which is to be a structure of modern design, incorporating all the features necessary to make it one of the best court houses in the state. In general, the architectural designs are above the standard, as compared with similar localities. The public buildings follow the designs which are common throughout the states in the best localities, while the stores and business buildings are distinct in their arcade effects, which lend themselves to novel designs. Additional Comments: Extracted from: THE HISTORY OF IMPERIAL COUNTY CALIFORNIA EDITED BY F. C. FARR IN ONE VOLUME ILLUSTRATED Published by ELMS AND FRANKS BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA 1918 Printed by Taylor & Taylor, San Francisco File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ca/imperial/history/1918/historyo/architec250nms.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/cafiles/ File size: 5.3 Kb