HistoricSiteMarkers
Reconstruction & Gilded Age

State Printing Building

Carson City, Carson City, Nevada

Marker Inscription

State Printing Building. Completed in 1886, the State Printing Building is the second oldest structure built by the State within the Capitol Complex.  Architects Morrill J. Curtis and Seymore Pixley, designed the Italianate structure to compliment the older State Capitol (1870).  Curtis was responsible for many significant buildings throughout Nevada and the West, including the octagonal library annex to the rear of the State Capitol (1906).  Like many important structures in Carson City, this building was constructed of sandstone ashlar quarried at the nearby State Prison and is a significant example of state governmental architecture for the period.  From 1886 to 1964, this building housed the offices and presses of the State Printer.

Erected by Division Of Historic Preservation And Archaeologynevada State Librarydivision Of Archives And Records

The Story

Completed in 1886, the State Printing Building is the second oldest structure the State of Nevada raised within its Capitol Complex. Architects Morrill J. Curtis and Seymore Pixley designed the Italianate building to complement the 1870 State Capitol, using sandstone ashlar quarried at the nearby state prison—a signature material of Carson City's public buildings. For nearly eighty years, until 1964, it housed the offices and presses of the State Printer.

Why it matters

It reflects the machinery of a young state building its institutions, from a capitol to an official press, in the decades after Nevada's 1864 statehood.

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Related people

  • · Morrill J. Curtis
  • · Seymore Pixley

Themes & tags

Nearby & related markers

Nevada's Capitol

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Completed in 1871, Nevada's Victorian-era Capitol was raised from sandstone quarried by Carson City's founder, Abe Curry. An octagonal annex followed in 1907 and the north and south wings in 1915. Its elegant interior boasts Alaskan marble walls and French crystal windows, a statehouse built to befit a young silver state.

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Completed in 1876, the Rinckel Mansion is a striking example of High Victorian Italianate architecture, built for merchant Mathias Rinckel by French-schooled designer Charles H. Jones and European craftsmen. Its pressed brick, sandstone foundation from the state prison quarry, and knot-free Tahoe lumber reflect the wealth behind it. Rinckel, a German immigrant, made his first fortune in California's gold country, added to it at Virginia City, and by 1863 had settled in Carson City as a livestock and meat supplier to the mining districts.

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