According to theater historians, the Nevada Theatre is the earliest, original theater extant in California.

Early theaters faced a precarious existence. They were threatened by fire as well as by technology and changing audience tastes. Those theaters that escaped fire were torn down and abandoned or replaced by more modern theaters.

The facade of the theatre is a splendid example of the architectural style termed "Mother Lode" or "Gold Country." One historian found a remarkable similarity between the facades of the Nevada Theatre and of the Ford Theatre in Washington, DC. If true, it might be more accurate to term the Nevada facade as example of Victorian style architecture.

Adapted from the NRHP nomination.

The Nevada Theatre is also California Historical Landmark 863.

Mining camps started as clusters of tents and other makeshift shelters. If the mine was productive, wooden buildings were erected and a town was born.

Conflagrations were a recurring curse. Often entire town were repeatedly destroyed by fire. Stonemasons, especially Italian immigrants from Liguria, began building "fire proof" banks and stores of stone or brick with iron doors and iron window shutters to protect the contents from fire.

Many of these stone buildings survive. Some of them, such as the Butte Store, are the sole reminders of a lost mining town.

Some of these buildings are: