A stately brick building along the main Route 66 corridor in Rolla, Missouri, recently was designated to the National Register of Historic Places.
The headquarters of the Rolla Division of the Bureau of Mines, also known as the Bureau of Mines Building No. 1, earned the designation April 24, according to an email Thursday from the National Park Service.
The building sits at 1300 N. Bishop Ave. (aka Route 66) at the Missouri University of Science and Technology campus.
According to the nomination, the building was built by the Bureau of Mines in 1947-1948 and rebuilt after a fire from a lightning strike badly damaged the roof in 1950. The exterior remains “largely intact” and “looks much as it did in the 1950s.”
The building became part of the university when Congress dissolved the Bureau of Mines in the 1990s. It is used for office and research space.
In summary, the petition noted:
The Headquarters building at 1300 Bishop Avenue is the only building constructed by the Bureau of Mines in Rolla which retains integrity (other extant properties either have a loss of integrity or were built by the University). It represents efforts of the City of Rolla to keep the Bureau of Mines in Rolla when the University would no longer support it
(Image of the Bureau of Mines Building No. 1 via the National Register nominating petition)