Pending Nominations

Pursuant to Section 4855(a) of the California Code of Regulations California Register of Historical Resources (Title 14, Chapter 11.5), the following nominations are scheduled for the August 4, 2023 State Historical Resources Commission (SHRC) quarterly meeting, taking place at 9:00 AM at the California Natural Resources Headquarters Building, Conference Room 2-302, A& B (2nd Floor), 715 P Street, Sacramento, CA, 95814. This meeting will also be held online via Zoom, and broadcast via Cal-Span. Dial-in access will also be available. Meeting notices and agendas will be posted ten days prior to the meeting date, and a Zoom link will be posted on approximately the same date to register for this meeting.

Watch the meeting on CAL-SPAN if you wish to view the meeting but do not wish to provide public testimony.

Register via Zoom to attend the August 4, 2023 SHRC Meeting via this link if you wish to provide public testimony at the meeting.

The SHRC invites comments on the nominations from the public either in writing or at the scheduled public meeting. Copies of nominations are posted as PDF documents below. Written comments can be sent to: State Historical Resources Commission, P.O. Box 942896, Sacramento, CA 94296-0001.

The order of comments for nominations under consideration during the Discussion and Action portion on the agenda will proceed as follows: The Commission will first hear from the nominator or his/her/their designee. The nominator or his/her/their designee will have ten (10) minutes to speak. The Commission will then hear from the property owner(s) or his/her/their designee. Each property owner or his/her/their designee of an individually nominated property will have ten (10) minutes to speak. Each property owner or his/her/their designee whose property is within the boundaries of a nominated district will have five (5) minutes to speak. Individuals representing local, state, federal, and tribal governments, will each have five (5) minutes to speak. Any member of the general public will have three (3) minutes to speak. Those members of the public who require a translator will be allocated twice the time otherwise defined. Within this stated order of commenters, those in the room will be heard from first and then those participating via Zoom or telephone.

Those providing comments about nominations that are on Consent or comments related to other matters not pertaining to nominations will each have three (3) minutes to speak.

Media presentations shall be submitted at least 48 hours prior to the meeting and shall not go beyond the allowable time frame for the applicable comment period.

PLEASE NOTE

Complete and official listing of nominated properties scheduled for hearing at the above mentioned SHRC Meeting can be found on the meeting agenda via the SHRC Meeting Schedule and Notices page. The nominations on this page may not reflect the most current properties listed on the agenda.

Properties can be removed from the agenda by the State Historic Preservation Officer or the State Historical Resources Commission. No properties can be added to the agenda.

National Register of Historic Places nominations are considered drafts until listed by the Keeper.

California Register of Historical Resources nominations are considered drafts until listed or formally determined eligible for listing by the State Historical Resources Commission.

Calfornia Historical Landmarks and Points of Historical Interest are considered drafts until approved for listing by the State Historical Resources Commission and the Director of California State Parks.

Properties nominated to the National Register of Historic Places

Higgins Building, a ten-story steel-reinforced concrete building in the Beaux Arts style, stands prominently at the corner of Second and Main Streets in downtown Los Angeles. The Higgins advanced the skyline of Los Angeles by demonstrating the successful use of concrete in a hi-rise, and advanced its infrastructure by embracing modern utilities, including a private electrical generating plant in its sub-basement. From its opening in 1910, the building was integral to the social history and commercial development of downtown Los Angeles at the beginning of the twentieth century and in the forefront of efforts at the beginning of the twenty-first century to repurpose the city’s abandoned or underused historic buildings.

Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church of Alameda is an increasingly rare example of Carpenter Gothic design and has a picturesque, asymmetrical composition. The complete set of stained-glass windows is original to the church’s 1890-1891 construction. The church embodies the distinctive characteristics of the Carpenter Gothic style, possesses high artistic values and craftsmanship, and represents the work of master architect Julius E. Krafft. The redwood church was constructed by builders Herbst and McLeod of Oakland, with stained glass windows attributed to John Mallon, an early and recognized stained glass maker in San Francisco.

Alpha Omega Chapter of Sigma Chi Fraternity House was designed by architect John Kennedy Branner in the Colonial Revival style and constructed in 1938 on the Stanford University campus. The three-story side-gabled fraternity house is significant for its association with the implementation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that banned racial discrimination in public accommodations. In 1965, the Chapter extended membership to Kenny Washington, a Black freshman student, thus rejecting Alpha Omega’s longstanding mandate of racial exclusion by the national fraternity of Sigma Chi. The action by the fraternity’s national executive committee to suspend the Stanford University Sigma Chi chapter started a national debate on university campuses and in the federal government on the legality of racial exclusion in public accommodations that led to eliminating racial preferences in university associations and fraternity admissions.

Doctors House is a two-story, circa 1888 Queen Anne style building in Glendale. Originally a single dwelling, it was moved to a public park to avert demolition and repurposed as a museum. Typical of Queen Anne style buildings, the property also incorporates some elements of the closely related Eastlake style, namely its squared roof tower and some of the exterior wood details—features that illustrate the aesthetic values underpinning the Queen Anne style. The building is one of only two extant Queen Anne style buildings in Glendale and is therefore a rare surviving example of the community’s early architectural heritage.

Toad Hall, named after the house in the children’s novel The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, embodies the distinctive characteristics of the Tudor Revival style. Completed in 1926, the house was built by the William R. Myers Company, a real estate development company that began in Los Angeles in 1907 and was the earliest developer of the Cheviotdale Heights neighborhood in Pasadena. The single-family residence was designed by Donald R. Wilkinson, an architect with a prolific career in the region.

Montgomery Way Gateway Historic District, in the South Curtis Park area of Sacramento, is comprised of a significant concentration and continuity of houses designed in early twentieth century period revival styles including Spanish Colonial Revival, Italian Renaissance, Tudor Revival, Mediterranean Revival, Colonial Revival, Classical Revival, Monterey Style, Italian Renaissance, and French Renaissance. Significant for its architecture and association with the growth of suburban neighborhoods, the development of the tract coincided with the national Better Homes Movement, which received broad support from both government and industry.

La Jolla Park Coastal Historic District, located fourteen miles north of the City of San Diego, includes coastal parkland, public rights-of-way, and resources on public and private property, encompassing approximately eight acres. The boundary of the district is defined by the coastal parkway and trail, extending south from the intersection of Coast Walk and Torrey Pines Road to the end of Coast Boulevard, and seaward to the mean high tideline. The contiguous coastal parkway shaped the development of the picturesque suburb of La Jolla; led to the construction of small cottages, bungalows, and hotels; and was the center of entertainment and leisure activities.

City Transfer and Storage Company Warehouse is a one-story brick warehouse located in Redlands, San Bernardino County. Originally constructed as a trolley barn, the building was principally used as a warehouse operated by a storage company. Constructed by Henry and John Fisher as a car barn for the Redlands Central Railway, a competitor with the San Bernardino Valley Traction Company, the building may never have performed its intended function, superseded by another car barn closer to the Southern Pacific depot. Instead, the building was used to store furniture, principally for families moving from Midwestern homes to seasonal residences in temperate Redlands, which was becomng a popular location for southern California summer homes in the early 20th century.

Evergreen Cemetery is a 21.76 acre burial ground located in Riverside, at the foot of Mount Rubidoux. Developed over the course of 150 years, from 1872 to 1960, the cemetery includes parklike settings, mature trees, curvilinear drives and footpaths, and a wide range of flat and upright monuments. The cemetery also includes a mausoleum, chapel with crematory, cemetery office, maintenance building, and receiving vaults, also historically used as an icehouse.

Sierra Railway Locomotive No. 3 is a standard gauge 4-6-0 "Ten-Wheeler" wagon-top boiler steam locomotive, built by Rogers Locomotive & Machine Works, Patterson, New Jersey, in 1891. Originally fired by coal, it was converted to oil-fired operation, and received several repairs durng its time as a locomotive for the Sierra Railroad in Tuolumne County, California, as part of regular maintenance and two wrecks. Starting in the 1920s, Sierra No. 3 became the railroad's principal locomotive used in motion pictures, and later television programs, shot on the Sierra Railroad. To facilitate its use in movies set in different eras and geographic locations, several parts of the locomotive can be switched out or disguised, including smokestack, pilot, headlight and other features. Sierra No. 3 represents the most famous "movie star" locomotive, as used on Hollywood's greatest movie railroad.

Watts Happening Cultural Center is a Late Modern community center, built in 1970 and located in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. Following the Watts Uprising of 1965, young people in Watts opened the Watts Happening Coffee House in an old furniture store, becoming an incubator for artistic expression and ad hoc community center, becoming home to the Mafundi Institute, a Black cultural academy. When the old building was not permitted to contain more than 50 people due to its unreinforced masonry construction, organizers received a grant to build a new facility, designed by Black architects Robert Kennard and Arthur Silvers. The Mafundi Institute closed its doors in 1975, but the building was reopened in 1982 and still serves its function as a community art space.

Properties being nominated as California Points of Historical Interest

Site of China Slide, located near Weaverville in Trinity County, marks the site of a February 3, 1890 landslide upstream from Collins Bar and Dixon Bar Creeks, along the Trinity River, that resulted in the death of two Chinese miners. The resulting blockage of the river created a nine-mile temporary dam that inundated the area upstream and resulted in dramatic changes to the Trinity River, which took years to return to its pre-slide state, and scars on the hillside from the slide are still visible today.

The next State Historical Resources Commission meeting is scheduled for Friday, August 4, 2023. Nominations to be heard on the August 4, 2023 agenda will be posted after June 5, 2023.