South on U.S. Highway 67 from Jacksonville is the county seat of Greene County, Carrollton. It’s fascinating to see how quiet and rural the countryside of Illinois becomes when you get away from the major arteries, whether they’re the interstate or railroad, and quaint towns appear on the old highways. It is only sixty miles…
Tag: Courthouses
Morgan County Courthouse, Jacksonville, Illinois
The Morgan County Courthouse is a massive pile of Second Empire goodness, sitting not in the middle of the nearby Central Park, but tucked away rather unobtrusively on a street radiating out from the square. Designed by J.B. Randal of Chicago in 1867, it was completed in 1869. The stone comes from Joliet, which makes…
Lincoln County Courthouse and Former Jail
Designed by Gustave Bachmann and constructed in 1870, the Lincoln County Courthouse in Troy is the second building on the site, replacing an earlier structure on the site built in 1830. Contractors Edwards and Griffiths completed the building for $27,500. The architectural drawings are kept by the Missouri State Historical Society. I call the building…
Old Montgomery County Courthouse, Dayton
The Montgomery County Courthouse in Dayton, Ohio is indeed one of the most beautiful and pure examples of the Greek Revival in America, and I must admit I was not expecting to find it here. Designed by Horace Daniels, it was opened in 1847, and is based off of Greek temples from the Golden Age…
Jefferson County Courthouse, Louisville Metro Hall
I realized I had gotten away from posting photos from my trip to the northeastern Midwest, and continuing on my theme of the Greek Revival that I had been examining in St. Charles County, I thought I would look at two excellent examples of that style, the first in Louisville, Kentucky. Originally built as the…
Fayette County Courthouse, Washington Court House, Ohio
The Fayette County Courthouse is one of the more impressive that I have seen in America, and it is well preserved and maintained. Opened in 1885, it was built between 1882-1884. It is built in what I might call a late Italianate, Second Empire hybrid style which defies easy categorization, as is so common in…
Washington Court House, Fayette County, Ohio
As I was planning out my short drive between Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio, I spotted a town slightly off the interstate named Washington Court House. That sounds interesting, I thought, I wonder if there’s a nice courthouse there. Google Street View confirmed there was in fact a spectacular courthouse there, so I turned off the…
First Street East, Independence, Iowa
The panoramic photo of downtown Independence serves us well again, as we can now look up and down First Street East to the east and west (where the Wapsipinicon Mill is visible to the far left). You can see the mill to the left; its view would have been partially blocked if the east mill…
Salem, Dent County
The Dent County Courthouse in Salem is one of the more interesting courthouses in Missouri, and I can’t help but notice that it looks like a Second Empire house. I even remember my time in Washington, DC, and loving one of the houses on Logan Circle, and it bears a striking similarity in massing. The…
Marion County Courthouse, Hannibal
Yes, there are two Marion County courthouses! As we continue down the Mississippi River Valley, we come to the largest city in Marion County, which is Hannibal. Due to the fact that the city was so much more dominant, a second courthouse was constructed in Hannibal to deal with the larger caseload. I’m sure there’s…