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 | |
Location | 487 Main St., Placerville, California |
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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
The 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]