Arch Hurley Conservancy District Office Building

What it is

The building is long and low. Its main block measures about 100 by 37 feet, and a covered porch, or portal, runs roughly 50 feet across the front and about 7 feet deep. Peeled logs serve as the porch posts, and the same kind of logs, set as posts and beams, carry the roof over the two main rooms inside.

Concrete block makes up most of the walls, with poured concrete used at the points where the roof beams tie in, and the whole building rests on a poured concrete foundation. A simple parapet edges the flat roof. The result is the adobe-inspired Pueblo Revival look, pared down to its essentials.

A bit of history

The office dates from 1940 and was drawn up by the federal Bureau of Reclamation. It has also gone by the name Tucumcari Project Office Building. Its builders worked in concrete and block rather than true adobe, one sign of its practical government roots, yet they still gave it the flat roof, parapet and log portal of the regional style. The building joined the National Register in 1994, recognized as a sober, government-issue take on the Pueblo Revival style.

Visiting tips

This is an office building rather than a museum, so plan to admire it from the sidewalk. The log-post portal is the detail to photograph. The building is listed as wheelchair accessible.

Several Tucumcari stops are within a few minutes' walk or drive. The Baca-Goodman House site is about 0.1 miles away, the Odeon Theatre about 0.3 miles, and the Blue Swallow Motel about 0.6 miles.