Miners’ Union Hall Approved for Nevada State Register

There is good news from Carson City today for an old brick building standing on B Street in Virginia City. On Sept. 11, the Nevada Board of Museums and History approved the Miners’ Union Hall for addition to the Nevada State Register of Historic Places, formally recognizing a building that has stood through nearly everything the Comstock could throw at it since 1876.

Virginia City has never been an especially easy place in which to grow old, whether one happens to be a man or a building. A man has time to contend with; a building has time, weather, fire, gravity and people with opinions about repairs. The Miners’ Union Hall has survived all of them and, at 150 years of age, seems determined to continue the experiment.

The Hall was built in 1876 for the Virginia City Miners’ Union, though its story began earlier. Comstock miners had been organizing since the early 1860s and helped establish the celebrated four-dollar daily wage. Four dollars does not cause much excitement today, but in those days it was sufficient to produce enthusiasm among miners and an entirely different emotion among those responsible for paying them.

The miners built themselves a substantial brick meeting hall on B Street, crowned with a beehive, the traditional emblem of industry and cooperation. It was appropriate then and remains so today, since preserving a 150-year-old building requires both in quantities considerably larger than the treasury generally provides.

The great mining years eventually faded, the men who built the Hall passed from the scene, and much of the Virginia City they knew disappeared with them. The Hall, whether through superior construction or sheer Comstock stubbornness, remained.

In the 1920s, Fraternal Order of Eagles Comstock Aerie No. 523 acquired the property and began what has now amounted to approximately a century of stewardship. Meetings, initiations, dances, memorials, elections, celebrations and community gatherings have taken place within its walls, together with whatever proceedings either escaped the secretary’s attention or were judged better left out of the minutes.

Keeping the Hall standing has required more than good intentions. Over the years, the Aerie has undertaken repairs and preservation work as the old building demanded them. A major preservation effort in 2007, assisted by a Historic Preservation Fund grant, included a new roof and stabilization of the front porch. More recent work has included roof replacement and stabilization of the historic balcony. Each project has bought the old Hall something every historic building needs and none can manufacture for itself, more time.

That same effort to preserve the Hall eventually turned toward securing recognition for its history. The State Register nomination documented both its association with organized labor on the Comstock and its architectural significance. The effort received formal support from the Storey County Board of County Commissioners on Sept. 1. Ten days later, the Nevada Board of Museums and History met in Carson City and approved the nomination.

State Register designation formally recognizes the Miners’ Union Hall as a historic resource worthy of preservation and documents its significance as part of Nevada’s history. It also strengthens future preservation efforts as Comstock Aerie No. 523 pursues grants, partnerships and other assistance for the Hall.

Historic recognition has many virtues, although repairing roofs, repointing bricks and reasoning with old plumbing are not yet among them. There remains plenty of work ahead.

The timing could hardly be more appropriate. The Miners’ Union Hall receives this recognition during the same year it celebrates its 150th anniversary.

As Historian of Comstock Aerie No. 523, I offered the following statement following the Board’s approval:

“The Miners’ Union Hall has outlived the people who built it, the mining era that gave it life, and generations of those who have gathered within its walls. Yet it is still here because each generation understood that it was something worth passing on. For the past century, Comstock Aerie No. 523 has carried that responsibility. Recognition on the Nevada State Register honors that legacy and gives the Miners’ Union Hall its own place in Nevada’s history.”

Comstock Aerie No. 523 extends its sincere thanks to the Nevada State Historic Preservation Office for its guidance and assistance throughout the nomination process, with particular thanks to Jean-Guy Tanner Dubé, CLG, National and State Register of Historic Places Coordinator and Architectural Historian, whose careful review and expertise helped bring the nomination to its successful conclusion.

The miners who built the Hall in 1876 were not trying to create a historic landmark. They needed a place to meet and conduct their affairs, and so they built one. That is the curious thing about history: it seldom announces itself when it arrives. More often it comes disguised as an ordinary meeting, a dance, an election, a repair to the roof or somebody turning a key in a familiar door.

The miners built the Hall for their generation. Those who followed preserved it for ours.

After 150 years, the old Hall still has business on the Comstock, and judging by its record so far, it has no intention of adjournment.