Virgin Valley Heritage Museum

Jacob Barlow

4 years ago

The Virgin Valley Heritage Museum (originally the Desert Valley Museum) in Mesquite, Nevada.

Constructed by the National Youth Administration of Nevada in 1941-1942 and co-sponsored by the City of Mesquite.

More history of the building can be seen on this page.

The museum was added to the National Register of Historic Places (#91001527) on October 24, 1991.

From the national register’s nomination form:
The Museum/Library Building of Mesquite, Nevada is significant as one of two of the only known surviving examples of National Youth Administration (NYA) activity in Nevada. It is eligible under criteria A arid C for association with this New Deal program and for the method of construction and design. Built in 1941 at the end of the program’s duration, the Museum/Library building is a vernacular adaptation of Pueblo Revival architecture, a style rarely seen in Nevada,

Setting:

Mesquite is situated on the Nevada/Arizona border not far from Utah. The nineteenth-century Spanish Trail cut through the vicinity, and Mesquite was serviced by the twentieth-century Arrowhead-Trail portion of the transcontinental highway. Mesquite was founded in 1880 when ten families, members of the Church of Latter Day Saints of Jesus Christ, moved from St. George, Utah to the north side of the Virgin River of southern Nevada. The Post Office called the community Mesquite from 1880 to 1887 when service was terminated. Unfortunately, the Virgin River was prone to flooding, endangering structures, canals and fields, A severe flood in 1882 caused many of the original settlers to leave the area which was abandoned entirely by 1891. It was, however, reestablished in 1895 by another, smaller group of Mormons who reinstituted cultivation of the fields. Postal service was resumed in 1897 to the community, there after called Mesquite. 1 The population has remained limited throughout most of the community’s history: In 1900 there were only 102 residents there; by 1940 it had grown to 515; and by 1980 it was home to 922 people, many of whom were descendants from the 1895 settlement.

Initially, settlers were attracted to area because of its temperate climate and available source of water from the Virgin River. This made the cultivation of cotton and grapes possible. Eventually, cotton was replaced by alfalfa.

Structures in the valley were originally adobe since the closest lumber supply was 85 miles away and the nearest railroad station was in Milford, Utah, 150 miles away. In 1900 telephone service reached the valley. In 1909 a Mormon temple was erected. About the same time the community constructed a lumber school building. This was replaced in 1923 by “A beautiful cement block building.” By 1923 there were four small stores in town. The community changed dramatically in 1981 with the construction of a major hotel/casino resort.

National Youth Administration – Criterion A:

The NYA was inspired largely by Eleanor Roosevelt who once said that “I have moments of real terror when I think we might be losing this generation.” While the Civilian Conservation Corps was created to care for the most desperate cases, those young people who no longer attended school and were dropping out of society, the NYA was organized specifically to assist young people who were in school and yet were threatened with the need to drop out because of lack of funds. Created on June 26, 1935 by executive order, it was initially attached to the Works Progress Administration.

There were two divisions of the NYA, one of which dealt with student work. This program provided funding for students, chiefly belonging to relief families, who needed support, to stay in school. The second program was designed to assist young people who had dropped out of school. This program provided training to these young people so that they could assume their place in the labor market as qualified workers.

Audrey Williams, who became the head of the new agency, decided that the national office would impose only the most general guidelines on the program to enable state and local officials to tailor the program to fit local needs. John Salmond points out that “By early 1937, more than 400,000 young people were receiving assistance, and the monthly number rarely dropped below 300,000 thereafter. By the time the program was terminated in 1943, more than 2 million young people had received assistance.

Initially the NYA worked on parks projects and community efforts which required little capital but a great deal of labor. This approach was largely abandoned by 1937, replaced by one which called for more technical training, since this was more in keeping with the spirit of the NYA. In 1939 the NYA began yet another transition as it postured itself in the federal effort to prepare for war. Increasingly the youth were trained in the defense industry and as Salmond points out, “From mid-1940, its nondefense function were progressively shed until by 1942 it was involved solely in the war effort.”

Nevada’s participation in the NYA was minimal. Although the New Deal was generally effective in Nevada, minimal participation was generally the rule due to limited population and to the fact that the state suffered less from the Great Depression than others. It consistently ranked at the bottom in the nation for the number of schools and students participating and for the amount of funds expended. The Final Report of the National Youth Administration; Fiscal Years 1936-1943 points out that between 1939 and 1940 only 38 Nevada schools and colleges participated in the NYA Student Work Program. At the same time, Nevada had only 301 students participating 213 in the School Work Program and 88 in the College Work Program. In comparison, Delaware, the next highest state, had fifty schools and 507 students involved. In 1940-41, for further contrast, Illinois had 25,466 students participating and Pennsylvania had almost 30,000. During the fiscal year 1941-42, Nevada’s enrollment dropped to 218 and by the following it diminished to 31, reflecting the national process of phasing out the NYA. Similarly, the Nevada Out of School pi-ogram employed 227 young people in 1940, 268 in 1941 and 187 in 1942. Between 1936 and 1943, $373,742 was distributed in Nevada through the NYA for both programs. This represents the smallest amount given to any state. Delaware, recipient of the next largest amount, received $794,928, while Pennsylvania, which received the most, was awarded $47,998,272.

The NYA in Nevada supported college students at the University of Nevada campus (located in Reno) who were employed to grade papers and to help professors. It appears that the program designed to employ young people not enrolled at the University took a variety of forms, but the specifics of the program are not documented in the state.

The building constructed by the NYA in Mesquite provides an excellent opportunity to understand how the program was implemented in Nevada for non-University students. Although construction of buildings was not a commonly funded goal of the NYA, the program occasionally supported such tasks as a means of employing and training NYA youth. Such buildings were constructed by boys working under qualified supervisors. In this case, Walter Warren Hughes, a local resident, acted as supervisor and builder. There is only one other known example of the NYA building program in Nevada: in Lovelock, Nevada, the NYA funded the construction of a Vocational Agriculture building also in 1941.

The building in Mesquite, Nevada was constructed in 1941. This structure was originally intended to serve the community as a museum and library. It housed the Mesquite Branch of the Clark County Library for about a year after which it was used as a clinic and hospital. The building served in this capacity until 1977 when it was vacated. Following a hiatus of several years, the Boy Scouts assumed control of the building, which in 1985 became a community museum.

The modest size of the Mesquite Museum/Library corresponds to the limited population of Mesquite in 1940 (510 people) and to a sluggish agricultural community. Indeed, no architect was hired for the project and funds for the construction of the building ran out by the time the walls had reached the top of the windows. Volunteers finished the project and lumber was donated for the roof: five students traded their labor at Johnny Bower’s lumber mill, located in the Pine Valley Mountains, for the material. A shift in the size of rocks provides evidence of this break in construction: smaller stones are used to the top of the windows above which larger rocks, which took less time to set in place, are used.

Initially the NYA project employed between fifteen and twenty-five high school students who earned fifty cents a day fqr work. About five worked at a time. The students hauled rock from the nearby Virgin River.

A newspaper article in the Las Vegas Review Journal at the time of the ground breaking in January, 1941 pointed out that “When completed, the building will house old pioneer and Indian relics as well as mounted specimens of insects and birds prevalent in the Virgin Valley. In connection there will be a school library which will be open to the public.” The article also pointed out that the students received training in “rock masonry, carpentry, plumbing, blacksmithing, and landscaping of the grounds.” The fact that the building, which continues to serve the community, was completed stands as testimony to the New Deal program and to the voluntary efforts of Mesquite’s youth who donated their time when funds ran out to make the project a success.

Vernacular Adaptation to Pueblo Revival Architecture – Criterion C

The Mesquite Museum/ Library building is constructed in a vernacular adaptation of Pueblo Revival style architecture. This style is rarely found in Nevada. The only other known example is in the Lost City Museum, constructed by Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) workers in 1935 in Overton, Nevada, about 25 miles to the southwest. The Lost City Museum was erected to house artifacts gathered from the Anasazi ruins at Lost City overlooking the Colorado River. The site was in danger of flooding caused by the rising waters of Lake Mead, produced by the Hoover/Boulder Dam project. CCC workers were employed to build the museum and to create replicas of the ruins for museum use. The Pueblo-Revival style architecture was considered appropriate for a museum facility designed to house Anasazi ruins since those prehistoric Native Americans, although inhabiting only a small portion of the state, traditionally employed pueblo architecture. Since the Lost City facility was constructed only a few years before the construction of the Mesquite NYA project, and since the Mesquite building was also intended as a Museum to “house [in part] Indian relics,” it seems clear that Hughes, the project supervisor, selected this style of architecture as appropriate. As one of the few historic uses of Pueblo Revival architecture in Nevada, the Mesquite Museum/Library is of considerable significance. That it represents a vernacular adaptation influenced by yet another New Deal project makes it all the more impressive.

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