The Old Courthouse is looking great following years of being closed for the first renovation in decades. All exhibitions were removed and replaced with new ones, such as this one on the courthouse’s role in freedom suits and slavery.

Of course, that story would be incomplete without including Harriet and Dred Scott, whose nationally influential case began in this building.

One dramatic change is that the two upper galleries that were once open to the public are now closed and a plexiglass barrier has been installed on the second floor gallery.

There are some nice explanatory panels, such as this one explaining the revolutionary design of the cast iron dome by William Rumbold. The Old Courthouse is interesting in that it has progressed beyond the design of the domes in Christopher Wren’s New St. Paul’s in London and Jules Hardouin-Mansart’s Invalides in Paris. It is sort of a modification of those two famous designs’ three domes into a new two shell dome using the strengths of cast iron.

There is also a gallery about the history of the courthouse…

…and another on the judicial process in America.

One bonus is that you now are allowed to walk around in one of the two courtrooms that were once largely closed to the public.