Beginning about 1924, a number of memorial buildings were built, originally as memorials to those servicemen killed in action during the Civil War, the Spanish American War and the Great War. These buildings were built with county, state and federal funds.

The Alameda Veterans' Memorial Building, designed by Henry H. Meyers, is a Spanish Colonial Revival structure enlivened with Art Deco details.

Meyers produced dozens of designs for county facilities, including ten veterans' memorial buildings which display the varied approach to historicist design employed by mainstream, eclectic American architects of the early 20th century.

Built between 1927 and 1934, the buildings fall primarily into two stylistic groups.

• Those in Oakland, Berkeley, Emeryville, and Hayward are rooted in Beaux-Arts classicism, with strictly symmetrical massing and varying degrees of classical detailing,
• Those in Fremont, Pleasanton, Livermore and Albany are Spanish Colonial Revival in feeling, characterized by white-painted plaster, terra-cotta tile roofs, and a tendency toward picturesque massing,
• Those in Alameda and San Leandro mix elements from both of these groups.

The buildings in Alameda, San Leandro, Emeryville and Hayward incorporate stylized applied ornament and fixtures of Art Moderne.

Excerpted from the NRHP nomination submitted in 2007.