The City of Dallas was incorporated as a town in 1874. Its first City Hall was built on the corner of Church and Court streets where the Carnegie Library building is today. That first building contained a holding cell for prisoners, a fire engine room, a library and public meeting spaces. When the Carnegie Library was built in 1912, a new wood building to house City Hall, the City Jail and the fire station was built behind the new library in the center of the block facing Church Street.
In the early 1930s, City leaders including Mayor Leif Finseth and Councilmen Maurice Dalton, C. B. Sundberg and William Retzer formed the City Building Committee. Working together, they conceptualized a modern brick building to replace the outdated 1912 wood building (which was torn down in 1956). During the 1930s, Dallas was not exempt from the hardship seen nationwide during the Great Depression, and the building was only made possible by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The project was one of the first projects funded by the program. The WPA was created in 1935 to address widespread unemployment by putting individuals back to work on civic projects such as building roads, bridges, and public facilities.
In 1935, construction began on the new City Hall, the architecture mirroring the fashionable Art Deco model of the 1925-1945 era characterized by stepped facades, zigzags, and stylized ornamentation, with many subtle details on the facades of the building. The average worker salary was a mere $41.57 per month and the building construction cost a total of $45,000. Despite the low cost, the workmanship and artfulness of both the interior and exterior of the building were quite remarkable for the times and have proven to be very durable.
The new building housed both the City administration and the fire department as well as a newly formed ambulance service. The east façade had four large engine bay doors facing Jefferson Street. The ambulance was parked in the still-visible basement bay with a steep upward climb to the street. As originally built, there was a dormitory for the fire department on the second floor and a “fireman’s pole” to quickly slide down to the first floor to respond to fires. In 1936, the city installed its first electric fire siren on top of the building which was used to alert firefighters to fire calls (one cycle for fires outside town, three for in town and 12 for the lumber mill). Today the siren functions as the “noon whistle” with one cycle to alert folks to the lunch hour in a comforting daily ritual.
A few years ago, the fire and ambulance departments moved across Jefferson Street into new buildings and the old fire hall was turned into offices and the Civic Center. A sensitive remodel of the east façade of the building closed in the fire bays as is evident today.
The building has received various renovations over the years to keep it functional and evolving with the steady growth of the city. The building remains in working condition and there never is any serious talk of building a new City Hall – the one we have is a classic building and much admired.
KEY REFERENCES:
- Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps
- Images of America, Dallas
- City of Dallas, Reconnaissance Survey Report, August 31, 2020