Designed by Seattle architect William Aitken and completed in 1931, the Art Deco Fire Hall was the first of three contiguous buildings that were to serve collectively as a city-government campus. Budget realities during the Depression, however, forced city leaders to scrap plans for the additional buildings, leaving the Fire Hall to serve triple-duty as the permanent home for the Fire Department, the City Council Chambers, and the city jail. Although the Port Angeles Fire Department moved to a larger facility in the 1950s, the Fire Hall remained in active use, serving as a juvenile home, Port Angeles’ first YMCA, the city Sanitation Department, a senior center and, until closing in 2006, a popular café. With deferred maintenance, foundation settlement, and seismic needs, recent assessments place the cost for core and shell upgrades at over one million dollars, with full rehabilitation likely to cost double that. Undaunted, city and county officials continue to champion reuse of the structure. Together with the former Carnegie Library (now the Clallam County Historical Museum) and the historic Clallam County Courthouse, in 2011 the Fire Hall was added to the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Port Angeles Civic Historic District, the only National Register-listed historic district within the city’s core.