County Courthouses Thread

[urbanactivist]

Post some pictures of a county courthouse or major administration building that you like...

Here's the coursthouse for Saline County in Arkansas...

[wrab]

Tippecanoe County courthouse in Lafayette, Indiana.
Indiana has some amazing courthouse architecture IMHO.

[Cirrus]

Since 2 threads about county courthouses were created within about an hour of each other, I combined them.

[Cirrus]

Most of the county courthouses in the DC area are fairly unspectacular. The historic ones tend to be handsome but small brick buildings, leftovers from the rural period. Generally most court functions have been removed to a much larger and relatively faceless contemporary building put up in recent decades.

One that is worth posting is from Fairfax County. It's no more than a minor local landmark, certainly not one of the country's best, but it's a nice enough building and has a tremendous history: George Washington's will is here, and there were three small Civil War battles at the site.

source

...

Colorado's courthouses are a little more spectacular.

Denver:

source

Boulder:

source

Pueblo:

source

[ChiSoxRox]

I'm partly to blame for the multiple courthouse threads. I've been planning a courthouse thread, and since they are somewhat similar to city halls in being the seat of local government, I put this post originally in the city hall thread. I put a line offering to create a separate courthouse thread, then went off to classes and in the meantime two helpful forumers went ahead and started my thread, hence the near-simultaneous thread creations and this subsequent merger.

---

In most of the Midwest, small towns are dominated by the county courthouse and the water tower, with city hall being some piddidly little building nearby. Iowa's courthouses are mostly towering late-1800s style buildings.

Dubuque County Courthouse (Dubuque, IA)




(drakefreund.com)

Polk CC (Des Moines)


(Trip Advisor)


(Flickr)

Johnson CC (Iowa City)


(Photographers Direct)


(Flickr)

Jefferson CC (Fairfield, IA)


(answers.com)


(city-data.com)

Wapello CC (Ottumwa, IA)


(britannica.com)

Des Moines CC (Burlington, IA)


(Waymarking)


(cardcow.com)

Johnson CC (Franklin, IN)
Found this while searching for Johnson County, Iowa and thought it was striking


(Flickr)


(city-data.com)

There are over 3,000 organized counties/parishes/boroughs in the United States.

[eastsider2]

Milwaukee County Courthouse

Located Downtown

[ethereal_reality]

Here are a couple more of Lafayette Indiana's Tippecanoe County Court House.
The building is so LARGE and closely surrounded by buildings, that it's a bit difficult to photograph.


Below:
A new building now blocks this view of the court house.



monon site




jpstanley






justin e. smith73







jpstanley

[hauntedheadnc]

Thus far, Dubuque's is most impressive, in my opinion.

Meanwhile, here's the Buncombe County Courthouse, the tallest in the state of North Carolina.



And viewed side by side with the Asheville City Building. Originally the two were to be part of a "civic center" complex designed by the same architect. However, once the county saw the exuberant art deco design for the city hall, they thought it far too daring and canceled his contract. The county then chose a firm out of Washington, DC to build the courthouse. Hence, we have the Asheville City Building standing next to the Daily Planet Building.



And just for good measure, here's the Historic Henderson County Courthouse in Hendersonville, NC, about 20 miles south of Asheville. This building is not longer used as a courthouse -- it houses the county government offices. The actual courthouse is a cheaply-built pseudo-Greek Revival monstrosity built out of prefab concrete in the mid 90's. It's only redeeming feature is that it was so cheaply built that it already looks much older than it is. Viewed from certain angles, it looks like a fancy parking deck.



You will note that in Henderson County, Justice is not blind...

[nouveau_Mauvilla]

Mobile Government Plaza. It was the nation's first structure to combine county and city governments and the court system in one facility. Located downtown.






Source for above 3: http://www.mobilecountyal.gov/Defaul...vernment+Plaza


Source: http://www.batchelorsmech.com/projects.htm


Souce: http://www.southeastroads.com/mobile.html

[LMich]

It was the nation's first structure to combine county and city governments and the court system in one facility.

I seriously doubt that is even close to the truth. Just as one example, the City-County Building in downtown Detroit was completed 1954. Another example is the City-County Building in downtown Indianapolis completed in the 60's.

Anyway, instead of posting county courthouses that I like, I'll just post the one in my county:

Ingham County Courthouse


courthouselover

Actually, there is a courthouse in my state I really do like, and it's the Midland County Courthouse:


eridony

[Kurtman]

One of my favorites is the Onondaga County Courthouse in Syracuse, NY

[LMich]

The old Wayne County Courthouse in downtown Detroit ain't half bad:


pverdonk


dorsil

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by LMich

I seriously doubt that is even close to the truth. Just as one example, the City-County Building in downtown Detroit was completed 1954. Another example is the City-County Building in downtown Indianapolis completed in the 60's.

and going back even older than that, you have chicago's city hall -cook county building, competed in 1908 and designed by Holabird & Roche, that combined both city and county governments into one structure:




source: http://suites.files.wordpress.com/20...-city-hall.gif


and here's the annex structure, the daley center, erected across the street from the original building in the 60s after the chicago/cook county bureaucracy outgrew the original building. this structure now contains most of the courtrooms, amongst other office and administrative space, and at 648' tall, i think it ranks as one of the tallest "courthouses" in the world.


source: http://www.som.com/resources/categor...1_21605883.jpg

[Nowhereman1280]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

and here's the annex structure, the daley center, erected across the street from the original building in the 60s after the chicago/cook county bureaucracy outgrew the original building. this structure now contains most of the courtrooms, amongst other office and administrative space, and at 648' tall, i think it ranks as one of the tallest "courthouses" in the world.

Actually I fairly certain it also ranks among the coolest "courthouses" in the world as well. If you've ever been inside its interior is phenomenal. It is ridiculously efficient in its layout and allocation of space with related departments and divisions on different floors connected by multi-story atriums and escalators. This dovetails with the extreme structural system of the building with some of the largest beam spans (87 feet between columns) ever constructed in a highrise in order to provide large column free courtrooms. That and the corten steel is just beautiful (who would ever have thought rusting metal could be pleasing to the eye?)! One of my favorite little details of the building is the corten flag poles in the plaza that mirror the X shape of the huge exterior columns of the building. Easily one of my top ten favorite buildings of all time.

[texcolo]

Texas has 254 counties!

All photos are from www.texascourthouses.com. Out of 254, here's a few I think are worth looking at:

Tarrant County (Fort Worth) - It sits on a bluff over the Trinity River at the end of Main Street.



Hill County - This burnt down a little over 10 years ago. It was recently restored.



Bexar County (San Antonio) - Sits along the Riverwalk. I like the corncob tower.



Hunt County (Greenville) - Featured in the movie 'Boys Don't Cry'. I've paid tickets etc. there many a time. Apparently it's haunted. Ghosttheory.com



Wise County - My dad grew up in this town (Decatur) and used to climb up the tower stairs as a kid to look around town.


Comal County (New Braunfels) - This does not sit in the town square, but off to the side. The German founded town features a gazebo in the town square.


Hopkins County (Sulphur Springs) - Occupies a tiny fraction of the town square... a really small building.


Should I keep going... LOL

Loving County (Mentone) - It doesn't look like much but in the entire history of Loving County the population has never topped 300. Today is stands at 67.

[rockyi]

Rock Island County Courthouse in a vintage postcard view. The tower was removed in the 1950's due to major leakage.

http://www.rockislandpreservation.or...ourthouse.aspx

[vid]

America's hundreds of Romanesque courthouses are amazing. I wish we did something similar in Canada. Alas.... Most of Ontario's old courthouses are classical in design.

Ontario Superior Court of Justice for Thunder Bay District, the main courthouse for the region, built in Port Arthur (the city's north end) in 1928 and at the time was the largest courthouse in Northern Ontario. (In Ontario, a district is like a county but without a government.)



Ontario Court of Justice for Thunder Bay District:



A lower level court located in Fort William (the city's south end) to make space in this building:



For the amalgamated police department. That building was constructed in 1910 as the courthouse and police station for Fort William. It became a museum in 1994.

We're getting a new consolidated district court house built in the centre of Fort William, but no renders have been released yet. It begins construction this summer.

[nouveau_Mauvilla]

Weird, because that is a fairly well known "fact" around here.

It is the nation's first structure to combine county and city governments and the court system in one facility.

http://www.mobilecountyal.gov/Defaul...vernment+Plaza

I guess having those three together isn't too unusual then?

[Kurtman]

Doesn't it figure, as soon as this thread was started, I got stuck with Jury Duty at the Albany County Courthouse

[wrab]

Chicago/(old) Cook County's big Corinthians: