{"nrhp_refnum":"83001248","name":"City Hotel","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"145 S. Washington St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Sonora","county":"Tuolumne County","state":"CA","lat":37.98355337300006,"lon":-120.38188656699998,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1983-06-30","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Commerce","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A two-story slate (schist) and brick hotel building at 145 South Washington Street in Sonora, Tuolumne County, California, built in 1852 with a later wood-frame stucco addition and gable roof.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the hotel is a rare surviving example of early Gold Rush stone construction, built of locally quarried schist and locally made brick that resisted fire. It was also the chief hotel in Sonora from 1852 until 1896, a stagecoach stop and center of community life in Tuolumne County.","narrative":"Built in 1852 at the corner of South Washington and Theall Streets in Sonora, the City Hotel is a two-story building with two-foot-thick walls of locally quarried schist, bonded with adobe mortar and trimmed with brick around doors, windows and corners. It replaced an earlier, less durable hotel lost in the fire of June 1852, and was rebuilt by Alonzo Green and Judge James Lane in three months. Its masonry let it survive the 1853 fire. Until the Hotel Victoria opened in 1896, it was Sonora's leading hotel, with a saloon, billiard room, dining room and sample rooms for traveling salesmen, and every stagecoach line stopped there. A wood-frame stucco addition of the late 1880s and a gable roof added between 1890 and 1896 increased the room count. The ground floor later became shops, and the upstairs rooms became offices. Recent remodeling exposed the stonework and added a balcony resembling the original. It is cited as a rare surviving early stone building in California's Gold Rush country.","period_of_significance":"1852-1896","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":null,"criteria":[],"status_note":"Occupied; the ground floor is used for retail and commercial space, the second floor was remodeled into offices, and the third floor is intact.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:54:26.857831-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_CA/83001248.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/83001248/c1f82d9fe6-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/83001248/c1f82d9fe6-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 2.5","author":"G.Rogers (Rodge500)","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sonora_CA.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">G.Rogers (Rodge500)</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 2.5</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sonora_CA.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/123862269","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Hotel_(Sonora,_California)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5123234"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/california/tuolumne-county/city-hotel-83001248/"}