Historic designation sought for hangar

Getting the old Bullock Field Navy Hangar onto the National Registry of Historic Places has been on the radar of the Boulder City Historic Preservation Commission for about a year and a half and earlier this month, the city council agreed.

As long, that is, as it did not impede their ability to knock it down later if the land under it became too valuable.

Back in July of last year, the commission discussed the building, which is currently used for storage by Boulder City’s Public Works department. In a 2024 historic preservation event held at the site, attendees were not even able to go inside. The building exists in a kind of historical limbo. It’s an important part of the city’s history but without the kind of historical recognition that might make it more than a giant, glorified garage.

In their meeting of July 24, Historic Preservation Commission chair Blair Davenport requested a discussion of how that situation might be remedied.

“People want to know what’s going on with it and also its condition. My understanding is that the first part of any process with a historic building is to determine, is it historic?” she asked.

From 1933 until 1990, the building was the main hangar for the original Boulder City Airport.

The original Boulder City Airport was opened in 1933 and served as headquarters for Noel Bullock’s sightseeing flights over Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon. In 1938, Trans World Airlines (TWA) leased the facility and built a terminal. The terminal still stands just east of the old hangar and has been repurposed since 1958 as the headquarters for Elks Lodge 1682.

TWA operated commercial flights at the airport originally known as Bullock Field until 1949 when the airport was condemned by the Civil Aeronautics Authority, the predecessor to today’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Renovations were made and the old airport reopened in 1961. By 1980, it was down to a single runway (from a total of three in years past) and it closed in 1990 when the current Boulder City Municipal Airport opened.

“Earlier this year,” Deputy City Manager Michael Mays told the council in their Nov. 10 meeting, “the Historic Preservation Commission asked Broadbent to research and prepare material in order to submit to the national register a nomination to add the hanger to the registry.” Broadbent is an outside consulting firm the city contracts with for expertise in historic preservation matters. The person from Broadbent who works with the city and the commission is Courtney Mooney.

“The Historic Preservation Commission reviewed the application submission that was prepared by Broadbent and Ms. Mooney. And that application was recommended for approval to the city council on Sept. 24. To submit the application to the national register, per city code, it requires city council to hold a public hearing and approve a resolution,” Mays explained.

The council asked about the Elks Lodge building, and was told that, while the commission originally asked to explore placing the hangar and the Elks Lodge and the original runway on the registry, that Mooney had determined that the Elks Lodge and the runway had been changed so much since the 1950s, that they no longer qualified.

“So if we make this part of the national registry, what happens if we decide we want to knock the building down and utilize that land for something that could be very profitable or that the city would really want?” asked Councilwoman Cokie Booth.

Mays answered that placement on the registry would not prohibit demolition in the future.

The council, after some short discussion about other historic buildings in Boulder City, voted unanimously to move forward with the application for the hangar.