Bandelier Historic Structure Report: CCC Buildings

THE BUILDINGS (continued)

B-6, Garage

Constructed in 1935 and 1936, this building housed vehicles and other equipment (figure 68). The two end bays of this eight-bay building were enclosed and used for materials storage. The other six bays remained open. Original floors were tuff gravel; a concrete floor was poured in 1977.

This was the last building constructed in the walled maintenance yard. The other buildings, B-3, B-4, and B-5, and the wall footings had to be finished first so that they could be backfilled with the large amounts of material excavated for this building. [104] When the CCC completed the building, landscape architect Charles Richey commented that the building had an "unusually nice appearance for a building of this kind." [105] The use of carved corbels capping the columns that separated the bays (figure 69) added character to a relatively simple structure. In 1943, 32 bins were constructed inside this building to store equipment and materials. [106] Over the years, the size of park maintenance vehicles became larger, making this building's original use obsolete. The use changed to a storage facility. The monument staff enclosed six of the eight bays. Additional interior partitions constructed of 2 x 4s, Sheetrock, and plywood divided the interior space into six sections. The maintenance staff did most of this work in 1977 to store lumber and forest fire suppression tools. [107] This fire cache may have been created in the aftermath of the 1977 La Mesa fire. The building had natural gas service installed in 1984.

Lyle N. Barcume designed the building.

Figure 68. Plans for the garage (B-6), 1935 (drawing 315/3023, sheet 1).

Figure 69. When the garage (B-6) was completed in 1936, landscape architect Charles Richey commented on the structure's "unusually nice appearance for a building of this kind." In 1988 the building was used to store materials. (Photo: Copeland for NPS)