Commission moves to address old hangar

Driving into Boulder City it’s very easy to pass a piece of Southern Nevada history without even seeing it.

Hidden in plain sight, behind an RV dealership and not far from the town’s only McDonald’s is a large, somewhat dilapidated-looking white building.

If you actually drive up to it, on the wall next to a door, there is a plaque that identifies the person who restored the building some years ago as Paul Fisher, the inventor of the pen used by astronauts and naming its previous use.

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.

Today, the old hangar is used for storage by Boulder City’s Public Works department. In a recent historic preservation event held at the site, attendees were not even able to go inside. The building exists in a kind of historical limbo. 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.

Commission member Chuck Baker (who also writes a monthly column about veterans’ issues for the Review) brought up his desire to see the building eventually turned into a “veterans and military museum.”

“Several meetings ago I brought up the idea of seeing if the city would consider a veterans and military museum,” he said and advocated for that use of the building should it be deemed historic.

The first step in any plan to redeem the old hangar starts with getting some official designation of its historic status. Surprising to many at the meeting, the building is not currently on any official register of historic places. Not the local register or the state register or the national register.

After this meeting, an effort appears to be underway to at least find out what the options are for getting the old hangar listed.

The commission directed Courtney Mooney, the historic preservation consultant contracted by the city, to begin the process of investigating how the city can go about getting some kind of official designation for the old hangar.

Mooney will report back to the committee at a future meeting and any potential steps toward an official designation would have to be approved by the city council.