Kidd and Knox Building (Nevada City, California)

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At the corner of Borad and Pine.

The Kidd-Knox Building, a massive, two-story iron-shuttered brick structure, was built in 1856 on the site where Hamlet Davis opened the first store on Broad Street in 1850.

In 1850, Hamlet Davis opened a general merchandise store in a tent on this corner. The general merchandise business was so good that Davis took in a partner and replaced his tent store with a two-story frame building that August which featured a reading room above the new store. Soon Davis enlarged the second floor for a Dramatic Hall, the first theater in Nevada City.

The first floor housed the store, while upstairs the patrons could rent newspapers and periodicals from “The States.” Reading material was always in short supply and a newspaper or magazine, regardless of age, was almost worth its weight in gold to the miners.

Destroyed by the fire of 1856, as was the city’s first brick structure located next door, the present building was erected shortly after. The wrap-around wrought iron balcony adds a look of distinction to this old place which has long been one of the town’s major commercial buildings. It has also housed the offices of many lawyers and judges who worked in the courthouse just up the hill.

It is located across from Schreiber’s Corner.