The 1912 Minden meeting hall that became a temporary morgue after Nevada's deadliest air disaster in 1964
1606 Esmeralda Avenue, Minden, NV 89423
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Exterior viewing is free. The hall is a town-operated event venue rented for weddings, dances, and community functions; there is no public museum admission. Check the Town of Minden site for event schedules.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Flat downtown sidewalk and paved parking. Building viewable from Esmeralda Avenue.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1912 · National Register of Historic Places (1983) · Carson Valley Improvement Club · Paradise Airlines Flight 901A disaster (1964)
The Carson Valley Improvement Club built its hall in 1912 to host meetings, dances, and community gatherings for the growing town of Minden. The two-story brick structure uses several patterns of brickwork over an otherwise plain design and has anchored Esmeralda Avenue since. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 4, 1983.
The building's darkest chapter came on March 1, 1964. Paradise Airlines Flight 901A, a Lockheed L-049 Constellation flying from San Jose to the Lake Tahoe area, descended below the minimum safe altitude in poor weather and struck Genoa Peak on the eastern rim of the Tahoe basin. All 85 people aboard, 81 passengers and 4 crew, were killed. It remains Nevada's deadliest aviation accident and, at the time, was among the deadliest single-aircraft crashes in United States history.
The sparsely populated Carson Valley had no facility equipped to receive that many dead. Officials chose the CVIC Hall as a makeshift morgue. The first seven victims were brought down to the hall on March 3, two days after the crash, where FBI technicians began the identification process. Dozens more were recovered over the following days as crews worked ahead of an incoming snowstorm, with recovery efforts continuing into late March.
The hall returned to civic use after the disaster and is operated today by the Town of Minden as a rentable event venue. Its role in the 1964 tragedy is the reason it appears on Carson Valley ghost-lore lists.
Sources
The CVIC Hall's reputation as a haunted site rests entirely on its use as a temporary morgue in March 1964. Carson Valley ghost-lore accounts note that a building that received the bodies of 85 crash victims would, by local reckoning, be unlikely to escape stories. As one regional account put it, it is not surprising that some say the hall is haunted.
The reported activity is described in general terms by those who tell it, without the named apparitions or specific incidents that attach to better-documented Nevada sites. There is no public record of a formal paranormal investigation at the hall, and the building functions today as a community event space rather than a tourism attraction built around its ghost stories.
What draws visitors is less a catalog of phenomena than the weight of what happened here: a small valley town's only large public room, briefly turned over to the grim work of identifying the dead from the worst air disaster in the state's history.
The CVIC Hall stands on Esmeralda Avenue in downtown Minden, a short walk from the Minden Inn and the Carson Valley Museum. The two-story brick building is viewable from the public sidewalk; interior access is limited to rented events. The surrounding historic district makes for an easy self-guided stroll.
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