Black Springs Firehouse Added to National Register of Historic Places

The Nevada State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) is proud to announce that the Black Springs Volunteer Firehouse has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. This recognition highlights the firehouse’s pivotal role as a symbol of resilience and community strength in the face of hardship and discrimination.

Associated with Nevada’s first African American Fire Chief, William “Bill” Lobster, the firehouse represents a significant contribution to the state’s history in the areas of community development and ethnic heritage. From its community-led design and construction in 1970, it served as the first and only firehouse in the predominantly Black neighborhood of Black Springs until it was vacated in the mid-to-late 1980s.

The National Register of Historic Places designation, overseen by the National Park Service (NPS), acknowledges sites of historic and cultural importance. This listing also provides opportunities for preservation through grant funding and tax incentives to protect and celebrate this vital piece of Nevada’s history.

Black Springs became a predominantly Black neighborhood in the unincorporated North Valleys area north of Reno, Nevada in the 1950s. It was notable as an entire neighborhood where Black citizens could purchase property at a time when restrictive racial covenants and rampant discrimination limited Black land ownership throughout the closest cities of Reno and Sparks. The Black Springs Volunteer Firehouse served as headquarters for the neighborhood’s volunteer firefighting organization from 1970 until the mid-1980s.

The volunteer firehouse conveys its importance as a symbol of the community’s self-determination and self-reliance. Just as the community came together to build the Black Springs Volunteer Firehouse in 1970, it came together again in 2022 to recognize and rehabilitate the building. The firehouse is now home to the Northern Nevada African American Firefighters Museum, which held its grand opening on April 26, 2022.  The Black Springs Volunteer Firehouse is located at the west termination of Coretta Way at Kennedy Drive in Reno, Nevada.

The property is owned by Washoe County and is leased to the museum. The volunteer firehouse is a single-single story, one-part garage building that sits next to the Westbrook Community Center. Modest and utilitarian, the building does not exhibit a particular architectural style.

The Black Springs Volunteer Firehouse joins other Reno and Washoe County resources listed in the National Register, including the St. Thomas Aquinas Cathedral Complex, Newlands Historic District, Washoe County Library, Reno Southern Pacific Railroad Depot and many others.  Reno is one of six Certified Local Governments in Nevada (CLG). CLG communities are municipalities that have demonstrated, through a certification process, a commitment to local preservation and are part of a partnership program between the National Park Service, State Historic Preservation Office and local governments.

For more information about this listing or the National Register program, please visit https://shpo.nv.gov/ or contact Jean-Guy Tanner Dubé, National and State Register Coordinator in the Nevada State Historic Preservation Office at (775) 684-3439 or shpo-info@shpo.nv.gov.