Springfield, Massachusetts

On the afternoon of  January 6, 1905 fire was discovered in the large brick City Hall that had served Springfield since 1856. Five minutes later flamed burst from all parts of the building. In twenty minutes the roof fell in and in an hour nothing was standing except the walls and tower. According to reports, the fire was set by a pet monkey escaping from its cage and overturning a kerosene lamp in pursuit of food from an exhibition in progress in the hall. The people in the building all escaped but the monkey lost its life in the conflagration. Also lost were all the assessors’ records in the city; the monetary loss of $100,000 was uninsured.

Ambitious plans were laid for the city’s second city hall. The grand municipal complex was to consist of two temple-like Greek Revival buildings flanking a 300-foot high Italianate Campanile clocktower. Completed in 1913, former President William Howard Taft officiated the opening ceremonies. Due to a height restriction in Springfield, the Campanile, with a carillon of twelve bells, remained the tallest structure in the city until 1973.

Albany, New York

Henry Hobson Richardson, America’s most influential architect of the late 1800s, went straight into his playbook for this municipal building in 1881 that replaced the previous city hall, designed by Philip Hooker in 1829, that had burned down. Richardson’s City Hall features many of his trademark Romanesque design elements: contrasting light and dark rough-cut stone; multiple arches, often in sets of three; groups of truncated pillars, decorative gables and a tower. In an 1885 listing of the Ten Most Beautiful Building in America by American Architect magazine, the Albany City Hall was on the honor roll. In 1927 the pyramidal-roofed tower was outfitted with the first municipal carillon in the United States, equipped with 60 bells. The largest weighs 11,200 pounds.

Johnstown, Pennsylvania

Joseph Johns set aside space on all four corners of this intersection for “parklets.” Three remain and only the corner containing City Hall is occupied. Constructed in 1900 to replace an earlier building on this site, the new City Hall held special significance for the community. Here one of the flood’s most beneficial changes to the town took place - the consolidation of many of the valley’s small boroughs into the City of Johnstown. Before the flood, each borough guarded its governing rights but rebuilding together made more sense and so consolidation was voted in on November 6, 1889.

The city fathers wanted to be sure that the new City Hall, constructed in 1900 to replace an earlier municipal building on the site, symbolized what they believed was the modern, progressive nature of Johnstown. To that end, Charles Robinson of Altoona designed a Richardsonian Romanesque structure, which at the time was the style of choice in America for monumental civic buildings. Walter Myton served as project architect; he designed at least forty residences in the area, along with
as many churches, schools, and stores.

A square wooden cupola, rising out of the western end of the roof, contains miniature features found in the larger building, such as false arches with voussoirs and small arched balconies.  It also has clock faces on all four sides. Note also the markers on the wall of City Hall, showing high water lines during Johnstown’s three worst floods. Flood control measures were taken after the 1936 disaster, yet in 1977, a “once in 500 years” storm caused a flood resulting in 85 deaths and $200 million in damage.

For decades, one of the residents of the parklets around Market and Main streets was Morley’s dog, a statue ]made in the late 1800s by J.W. Fiske Iron Works, a New York City-based maker and retailer of ornamental iron and zinc products. Cambria Iron executive James Morley bought the statue and placed it in his lawn at Main and Walnut, where it stood until being washed away by the floodwaters in the great flood of May 31, 1889. Recovered in the debris pile at the stone bridge, it was returned to Morley. The Morley family kept the statue at various residences throughout the city, including a house on Palliser Street in Southmont. In the 1940s, the statue was donated to the city, and became a beloved icon. It has since been removed in anticipation of needed restoration.

Over time people came to believe that Morley was a dog that saved a child during the great flood. There was such a dog, a Newfoundland named Romey who saved three people, but Morley’s Dog has nothing to do with that incident. This misconception was spread further by a reference in the 1977 Paul Newman movie Slap Shot.

Bristol, Rhode Island

It is probably safe to assume no one born in Indiana ever had as much impact on Rhode Island as Ambrose Burnside. command of Fort Adams in Newport brought Burnside to the Ocean State in 1852 where he found a wife and a permanent reputation as the inventor of a famous rifle that bore his name - the Burnside carbine. That reputation propelled a Civil War career that led Abraham Lincoln to offer him command of the Union Army. Major General Burnside turned him down believing, correctly, that he lacked the appropriate experience.

After the war ended Burnside was immediately elected to three one-year terms as Governor of Rhode Island and then mixed a successful business career with his political ambitions. At its inception in 1871, the National Rifle Association chose him as its first president. In 1874 he was elected to the United States Senate and was serving a second term when he died of a heart attack in Bristol in 1881 at the age of 57.

The erection of this memorial, now serving use as a town building, was quite a big deal in 1883 when it was planned. A crowd of some 5,000 overwhelmed the streets of Bristol to hear President Chester A. Arthur speak at the laying of the cornerstone. The building itself was designed by Stephen C. Earle of Worcester, Massachusetts and displays many of the hallmarks of the Richardsonian Romanesque style including prominent arches, multi-chromatic materials and pillar groups. Long completely clad in ivy, an award-winning restoration revealed the design details and red mortar between the stones. To the side and rear is the Bristol War Veterans Honor Roll Garden.

Frederick, Maryland

This Victorian style building, constructed in 1862, has been described as “one of the prettiest courthouse squares in America.” In 1765, Frederick citizens assembled in the courtyard and burned effigies of government officials in demonstration of the Stamp Act. This is considered to be the first public uprising against the monarchist rule, occurring several years before the Boston tea party. Busts of Maryland’s first governor Thomas Johnson and Supreme Court Justice Roger B. Taney are displayed in the courtyard.

This building replaced the original courthouse on the site that burned on May 8, 1861, with the bell in the cupola eerily tolling its own death knell as the roof began to collapse. Brick and iron fortify the present structure, a model of fireproof construction when it was completed in 1862. In 1986 the city government moved into the old courthouse.

Scranton, Pennsylvania

When Lackawanna County was formed in 1878, the city block that now houses the Lackawanna County Courthouse was known as “Lily Pond” or Tamarack Bog.” The property was a dump for ashes and cinders and was used for skating in the winter. In 1879, the Lackawanna Iron and Coal Company and the Susquehanna and Wyoming Valley Railroad and Coal Company donate the land as site for public buildings and a park.

Isaac Perry of Binghamton, New York was awarded the commission for the new county courthouse. Perry’s design called for a Victorian Chateau-style built in the warm tones of the city’s native west mountain stone, trimmed in Onondaga limestone. Construction was complete in 1884. In 1896, local architect B. Taylor Lacey designed the building’s third floor, adding eclectic stylistic influences such as a steeply pitched hipped tile roof, wall dormers with scrolled Flemish parapets topped by broken pediments and urns, a dentillated cornice and pyramidal-roofed towers.

The Lackawanna County Courthouse gained national attention in 1902 for its role as the meeting site for the Anthracite Coal Strike Commission’s sessions in Scranton. The Commission - appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt - met in the Superior Courtroom to hear testimony in America’s first non-violent federal intervention between labor and ownership. John Mitchell spoke on behalf of the mine workers and famed attorney Clarence Darrow represented management.

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Courthouse received a re-design of the clock tower in 1929 and a two-story rectangular wing in 1964.

Baltimore, Maryland

Situated on a city block bounded by Lexington Street on the North, Guilford Avenue on the
West, Fayette Street on the South and War Memorial Plaza to the East, the six-story structure was
designed by precocious 22-year old architect George A. Frederick in the Second Empire style with
prominent Mansard roofs and richly-framed dormers. Two floors of a repeating Serlian window
motif lord over an urbanely rusticated basement. Dedicated on October 25, 1875, it is an early
example of French Renaissance Revival construction in America. In 1975, City Hall was completely
restored to its former glory including the dome and formal hearing rooms.

Georgetown, South Carolina

The Georgetown County Courthouse courthouse, designed by prominent architect and South Carolina native Robert Mills, was built in 1823–24 to replace a courthouse which had been battered by two hurricanes. Mills himself, who also designed the Washington Monument, called this courthouse “a great ornament to the town.” A modern Mills scholar has described it as “the most sophisticated of his South Carolina courthouses.” An initial appropriation of $12,000 was approved for the new courthouse. This Mills design is an excellent example of the Classical Revival style so widely used in American public architecture during much of the nineteenth century.

Smyrna, Delaware

With its Italianate, Second Empire architecture, mansard roof, and brick exterior, the Smyrna Opera House is an outstanding example of the Second Floor Opera House, so popular in the second half of the 19th century and virtually non-existent in today’s communities. In the 1870s nearly every community had such a structure. Today there are perhaps half a dozen restored examples in the United States, and the Smyrna Opera House is the only one in Delaware. 

The Opera House rose in 1870 to literally become the center of Smyrna and Clayton life, hosting community events from high school graduations to cotillions, parties and turkey suppers. Formally known as The Old Town Hall, it has housed a theatre, Town offices, police and fire stations, a public library, a movie house called the Roxy, a lodge hall and even a jail. The barred windows of the jail are still visible.  

Among those who appeared at the Opera House were noted abolitionist Frederick Douglass; suffragettes Grace Greenwood, Lucy Stone, and Olive Logan; entertainers General Tom Thumb and Ada Gilman; musicians Frank Corbett and his Boston All-Star Orchestra and the Amphion Male Quartette; and, William Jennings Bryan, who spoke here while campaigning for president in 1900.  

The Opera House seen today is a restoration of the original. On Christmas night 1948 a fire swept through a block of downtown Smyrna, consuming the third floor and bell tower. Rather than raze the entire building it was decided to roof over the remnants. For a half-century the wounded hulk was little more than storage space. But in 2003 a $3.6 million recreation project brought the Opera House back to its 1887 appearance.  

The Town government offices moved out of the fire-compromised Opera House into this Colonial Revival building in 1976.

Madison, New Jersey

Marcellus Hartley Dodge, Jr.’s mother was Ethel Geraldine Rockefeller, daughter of William Rockefeller, co-founder of Standard Oil with John D. His father was the chairman of the board of the Remington Arms company. After graduating from Princeton in 1930 Dodge began indulging his passion for aviation, a pastime his mother found too dangerous and she sent him to France as a diversion. While there Dodge was instantly killed in an automobile accident when his roadster struck a tree. The grief-stricken parents built memorials to their son on the Princeton and Columbia campuses and spent $800,000 to fund the construction of this Georgian Revival showcase of imported marble and Maine granite. The Hartley Dodge Memorial Building is used as town offices.

Sumter, South Carolina

After the destruction by fire of an earlier Opera House (built in 1872) in December 1892, this scrumptious Richardsonian-Romanesque replacement rendered in Cumberland Bluff stone was built from 1893-1895. The 100-foot clock tower has been the focal point of downtown Sumter ever since. In 1936 the Opera House was renovated into a movie theater to the tune of $120,000.  The very first film shown at the Opera House was Earthworm Tractors; tickets to the first movie were 35 cents for adults and 10 cents for children. In 1982, after several interior renovations, none to the better, the Opera House closed its door after 46 years of operation as a movie theater.

The City of Sumter, in need of additional office space and hoping to attract more visitors to the downtown area, purchased the building in 1984 and began a painstaking restoration of the Opera House. The Opera House still houses City Hall and many of the City’s departments and offices, including City Council’s chambers. The first floor auditorium is once again an entertainment showcase.

Charleston, South Carolina

This site was originally set aside as a public market within the Civic Square of the Grand Modell, the 17th-century plan of the city. A beef market stood here from 1739 until it was destroyed by fire in 1796. This central intersection is now called “Four Corners of the Law,” as the four buildings surrounding it reflect four arms of law--ecclesiastical, state, federal and City Hall’s municipal law.

Charleston’s City Hall building was constructed between 1800 and 1804 in the Adamesque style by Charlestonian Gabriel Manigault. City Hall’s semi-circular projection on the north side and round basement windows are characteristic features of Manigault. The white marble trim is believed to have originated in Italy before it was cut in Philadelphia. The original red brick walls offered a striking contrast to this marble trim before the walls were covered with stucco in 1882.

Anderson, South Carolina

The second Anderson County Courthouse was constructed in 1898 on the site of the original 1820 courthouse. Features of this three-story building include curvilinear gables, decorative brick work, a central clock tower, arched windows with stone sills, a raised basement, and tile roof. The building originally had a large turret and balcony, which were removed when the building was remodeled in 1939. The clock face and bell in the tower are the same ones used in the original 1820 Courthouse. The bell, dated 1856, was presented to Anderson County by the City of Anderson and was first rung by Judge J.P. Reed.

New Haven, Connecticut

Henry Austin was a carpenter’s apprentice who began his career in architecture working for Ithiel Town, one of the first generation of professional architects in the United States. Beginning in 1836 Austin practiced more than 50 years in and around New Haven, working in a variety of popular 19th century styles. For the New Haven City Hall he added one of America’s first High Victorian Gothic buildings in 1861 with bands of sandstone and limestone. A much-needed restoration was undertaken in 1976 and has been maintained ever since.

Hope, New Jersey

This beautiful stone building was constructed in 1781 as the spiritual core of the Moravian community. It took 19 months to build the 3 1/2 story combination church and activity center. Religious services were convened in a large second floor room 30 feet square and their was space set aside for both boys and girls schools and dormitories. The minister’s quarters were also in the Gemeinhaus. After the Moravians sold their property and returned to Bethlehem in 1808 the building did duty as the Warren County Courthouse and had a long tenure as an inn servicing the stage coaches traveling between the Delaware River and the Hudson River. The family that operated the Union Inn from 1840 to 1853 was also around to help found the First Hope Bank in 1911, which has owned the building for the last century. The bank, still in the same family, has been careful caretakers of the Gemeinhaus, completing a meticulous restoration of the exterior, including the bell tower on the roof, in 1993.

Buffalo, New York

The cornerstone for one of America’s most massive and costliest municipal buildings was laid on May 14, 1930. It was completed, almost seven million dollars later, in time to commemorate the city’s Centennial on July 1, 1932. Architect John J. Wade provided the plans for the 28-story Art Deco masterwork that stood as Buffalo’s tallest building for almost four decades. Wade infused every corner of the City Hall colossus with a reminder of Buffalo from the central sandstone entrance frieze with pioneers and Iroquois Indian motifs to historic murals to statues of iconic figures. The brightly colored tiles at the top of the tower suggest a flame-like crown that represent the energetic sun burst in the flag of the City. The building was designed with large vents on the exterior to catch winds of Lake Erie to cool the interior without electricity.

Norwich, Connecticut

In the nearly 140 years since City Hall opened the exuberant Second Empire building is largely unaltered. Local architect Evan Burdick provided the dramatic design with red bricks on a cut granite base; he was also the designer of the Broadway Congregational Church, the Wauregan Hotel and several other town structures. The final price tag for City Hall, completed after three years of construction in 1873, was $250,000. The four-sided clock tower was added in 1909. In the basement are dreary dungeon-like cells, harkening back to the days when the police department was located there.

New London, Connecticut

The city government has operated here for over 150 years. The original building was an Italianate-style brownstone that fit in nicely with the residential nature of State Street in 1856. By the early 1900s the City thought it desirable to establish a more monumental presence as the neighborhood commercialized. In 1912 James Sweeney was called in to deliver a Renaissance Revival exterior to the Municipal Building which he accomplished with a rusticated base, a quartet of Corinthian columns, some pediments over the windows and a matching classical balustrade and low surrounding wall.

Brooklyn, New York

Born as City Hall for then decade-old Brooklyn in 1845, Borough Hall was designed by Gamaliel King who did architecture in his spare time. By trade he was a grocer and carpenter. King had actually been the runner-up in the 1835 competition to design City Hall to Calvin Pollard, a busy and prominent New York architect. A national Depression in 1837 scuttled building plans and by the time work resumed Pollard was elsewhere. King retained much of Pollard's Greek Revival design although today the original architect is completely forgotten - by ill luck not one of his New York buildings survives. The center cupola was added in 1898, the year Brooklyn was consolidated into New York City.

Annapolis, Maryland

The Anne Arundel County Courthouse is the third oldest courthouse still in use in Maryland.
Begun in 1821 and completed in 1824, the earliest portion of the courthouse was built to provide
a safe repository for County records and meeting rooms for the County Court and its officials,
a use that has continued to this day. Several expansions followed. Architecturally, the 1892-95
alterations and additions to the courthouse still define its overall character. Designed by Jackson C.
Gott, an important Baltimore architect, the alterations dramatically transformed the appearance of
the restrained, almost flat Federal Style building into a more graceful, three-dimensional Georgian
Revival structure, featuring the prominent entrance tower, corner pavilions and the second floor
courtroom.

Conway, South Carolina

In 1906 Col. D.A. Spivey introduced in the General Assembly the Act authorizing the construction of the Horry County Courthouse. The building committee was composed of C.P. Quattlebaum, John C. Spivey and John P. Durham. The formal opening was held in 1908, with Governor Martin F. Ansel as speaker. The building, crowned with an octagonal cupola topped by a finial with eagle weathervane, underwent renovation in 1937 and 1964. A portrait of Revolutionary War Colonel Peter Horry, for whom the county was named, hangs in the front hall, given by the local DAR chapter.

Windsor, Connecticut

The Georgian Revival Town Hall displays many of the hallmarks of the style - symmetry, corner quoins, balustrades and a center hall plan. It opened in 1966.

Mount Holly, New Jersey

With over 200 years of continuous use, the Burlington County Courthouse is one of only a handful of courthouses in America that can trace its roots back into the 1700s. Burlington City was the capital of the Province of West Jersey and the county seat until 1796 when the site of the County Court House moved to Mount Holly. Samuel Lewis of Philadelphia was selected to design the new building and he delivered a near replica of his Congress Hall and Old City Hall, the buildings flanking Independence Hall in Philadelphia. This splendid example of Colonial architecture is beautifully preserved with painted brick. Flanking the court house are a pair of single-story office buildings that were constructed in 1807. The courthouse bell, cast in England in 1755, was removed and installed from an earlier courthouse. It is said to have rung to signal the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania

This is the third courthouse located on this site. The first built sometime after 1843 was destroyed in the 1849 fire. The second was an imposing Greek revival structure demolished to make way for the current sandstone structure, designed by L. S. Jacoby of Allentown. On the building’s centennial in 1983, it was refurbished, leaving original Victorian courtroom preserved.

Hoboken, New Jersey

This square block was donated to the City by Colonel John Stevens who saw it as the home of a public marketplace. Instead it became home to City Hall. The original building was executed in 1883 by Francis George Himpler, who also drew plans for Our Lady of Grace Church, St. Mary’s Hospital and the Sacred Heart Academy. Himpler’s Second Empire design was classically modified in 1911 when City Hall picked up two projecting bays out front, an enlargement to the third floor and a jail to the rear.

When the first town hall was dedicated on May 2, 1825 the price tag for the two-story building was $9,017.90. When this Italian Renaissance city hall was opened to great fanfare on April 28, 1898 the final cost was $625,000. Worcester had come a long way through the 19th century. Distinguished artist and architect Richard Morris Hunt was engaged to oversee the project but he died and his son Richard Howland Hunt shepherded the building to completion. Faced with grey Milford granite, the magnificent Florentine capanile tower is 205 feet high, modeled on the Palazzo Vecchio. A bronze star set in the sidewalk marks the spot where, on July 14, 1776, Isaiah Thomas read the Declaration of Independence for the first time to a New England audience from the steps of the Old South Meeting House.

Port Deposit, Maryland

This building was constructed for use as a gymnasium by the Jacob Tome Institute in 1905. A gift to the town from Wiley Manufacturing Company, it included the first indoor swimming pool in Cecil County, a basketball court, locker rooms and showers. This stone building has typical Georgian Revival details including the dentiled and modillioned cornice, keystone lintels, and a Palladian window arrangement on the center gable. After interior renovations, completed in 1983, it serves as the municipal offices, library and public meeting room of the town.

Uniontown, Pennsylvania

Built in 1847, Fayette County purchased the property where the courthouse stands from Uniontown’s founder Henry Beeson for six pence which is the equivalent of about six cents today. The Richardson Romanesque structure was built out of local materials and features a clock tower along with a statue of the county’s namesake Marquis de Lafayette in its lobby. The eight-foot wooden statue was carved in 1847 by David Blythe, who became one of the outstanding native-scenes artists of his century. Larger than life, the polar planks are pinned together and his high hat is fashioned from tin. The statue periodically goes traveling to museums and art exhibits.

Willimantic, Connecticut

It took 1.25 million bricks to construct the Romanesque-inspired Town Hall in 1896. The Victorian confection rests on a foundation of ashlar brownstone and is capped by a copper clock tower with cupola. Warren Richard Briggs was the architect.

Chestertown, Maryland

One of the most important acts in establishing a port of Chestertown in 1706 was the provision for a court house. The earliest known plat of the town shows the 18th-century, apsidal-ended court house in the center of a large area of public ground with Emmanuel Church in one corner and the cemetery or church yard using much of the rest. A small jail stood behind the court house, the latter being of about the same size as the church in the late eighteenth century. The front section of the present Kent County court house was built in 1860, using a T-shaped plan whose main axis faces High Street. This, the oldest surviving part, is in essentially Italianate style, solidly built of hard, dark brick, with typically low roof, wide eaves, and elongated brackets along the cornice and on the doorframe. With the cemetery gone and the need for interior space pressing, a Colonial Revival addition was attached to the rear, with access from Cross Street, in 1969.

Newark, New Jersey

Architects Mowbray, Uffinger and Ely dispensed with function to create one of America’s grandest Beaux Arts-style public buildings. Completed in 1908, the final price tag for the five story limestone building was more than $2.6 million. The enormous interior space under a heavily ornamented dome boasts carved marble and fine paneling, a grand central staircase, stained-glass skylights, and decorative plaster and wrought-iron works. The central dome inside is made of copper and is flanked by atria with glass ceilings. Developer Harry Grant paid to have the dome covered in 24 karat gold in 1986.

The previous home for the City’s administrative offices was a block to the north. In 1870 Broad Street in front of City Hall was paved with asphalt courtesy of Edmund J. DeSmedt, a Belgian chemist. It was the first recorded use of asphalt on an American street. Six years later asphalt was used to pave Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. in anticipation of the nation’s Centennial in 1876. But today’s ubiquitous sticky black petroleum distillate was slow to catch on - as late as 1904 there were only 141 miles of paved asphalt roads in the entire United States.

Old Saybrook, Connecticut

Old Saybrook’s most famous resident was Katharine Hepburn, born in Hartford to an heiress to the Corning Glass fortune and a urologist father. In 1911 Dr. Thomas Hepburn bought a summer home in Fenwick, Old Saybrook in 1911. In 1997, after retiring from the most honored career in AMerican movie history, Katharine Hepburn moved from her New York City home to live in the family retreat full time. She died here in 2003 at the age of 96.

Old Town Hall was constructed in 1908 in the Colonial Revival style as a performance house for the old Saybrook Musical and Dramatic Club. The Town Hall also screened the first movies in Old Saybrook as the center of the town’s entertainment for more than 40 years. In the 1950s the Town of Old Saybrook brought the theater to an end, dividing the audience chamber into town offices and turning the stage into a conference room. In 2003, with the town offices removed into more expansive quarters, the building was restored to its original use as a theater. Two years later, the Hepburn family approved the naming of the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center.  

Carbondale, Pennsylvania

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, this Romanesque Revival red-brick municipal building was designed by Truman I. Lacey around the original two-story structure to the rear by changing the roof, adding the three-story wing and incorporating the signature clock tower. The home for city government offices opened in 1894.

Brockton, Massachusetts

After a nomadic existence since the incorporation of Brockton as a city in 1821, the first permanent home of the city government was constructed between 1892 and 1894. It was built on the site of the Centre School that had started in 1797. Wesley Lyng Minor, a Louisiana-born architect who settled in Brockton and designed many homes in the City, drew up the designs in Romanesque style. Construction materials included yellow brick, granite foundations and terra cotta and brownstone trim. City Hall was also intended as a Civil War monument in the interior halls and as home to the city library.

Elizabeth, New Jersey

Union County rules have been dictated from this site for well over 300 years. The first English-speaking Colonial Assembly in New Jersey met in a building here on May 26, 1668. That rough frame structure served as church, courthouse and meeting place and was enlarged several times before a Tory raiding party from Staten Island destroyed the building on January 28, 1870. After the War for Independence it was rebuilt but burned again in 1808. The courthouse that replaced it in 1810 was considered one of the finest in new Jersey. When Union County became the state’s last, breaking away from Essex County in 1857, an addition was constructed.

The new county was a success from the start and growth by the end of the century dictated a wholly new building which was provided in the Classical Revival style by New York architects W.S. Ackerman and Albert Randolph Ross in 1905. The new courthouse was dominated by a quartet of massive Corinthian columns on the outside and an impressive rotunda within. But even this grand new building could not keep up with Union County. By 1925 a seven-floor annex was added and in 1931 a 17-floor tower was tacked on at the cost of $1.2 million.

Decorating the grounds of the Union County Courthouse are a memorial to city firefighters and a cannon, cast in Strasburg in 1758, that was presented by General George Washington to troops from Elizabethtown for their service in their capture of the British position at Stony Point on the Hudson River in 1779.

Newberry, South Carolina

This building, the fourth in a series of five Newberry County courthouses, was used for court sessions between 1852 and 1906. It is an outstanding example of Greek Revival architecture in stuccoed brick highlighted by six fluted Tuscan columns which support a massive triangular pediment. During Reconstruction, Osborn Wells remodelled the courthouse, including a bas-relief mounted on the frontal pediment. It depicts the spirit of the prostrate state with a United States eagle holding an uprooted palmetto tree in its talons while, perched upon the tree roots, a gamecock crows defiantly (it originally sported a gold coin for an eye). At the top of the tree a dove bears an olive branch.

Reading, Pennsylvania

This massive and ornate 19-story Art Deco granite Berks County Courthouse, built in 1932 to last a century, at a cost of $2,000,000 during the Depression, stands 308 feet tall, making it the tallest courthouse in the United States, and also the most expensive building in Berks County. It is also the second-tallest municipal building in the state of Pennsylvania. Only Philadelphia’s City Hall is taller.

Cambridge, Maryland

Cambridge born-and-bred James Wallace was trained in the law and member of the Maryland house of delegates  in the 1850s. After the outbreak of the Civil War, he helped raise the First Maryland Volunteers (Eastern Shore) in August 1861 and took command as its colonel. The unit was intended to protect Union interests on the Eastern shore and elsewhere in Maryland but in July 1863, the First found itself at Gettysburg fighting on the third day of the battle around Culp’s Hill. In the regiment’s only day of pitched battle during its entire service, and with Wallace in command, it met and mauled the First Maryland Regiment of the Confederate States Army that contained many of their friends and neighbors from coastal Maryland. The regiment, and its colonel, ended its enlistment and mustered out two days before Christmas in 1863.

By the late 1800s Colonel James Wallace began packing oysters. He was the first to start raw shucking and steam packing of oysters in Cambridge, building, with his son, a nationally known business. The Wallace family mansion stood here on heights known as “The Hill.” The property was acquired in 1838 and remained in the family for 70 years. The City purchased the mansion in 1940 and eventually razed it for office space and the Rescue Fire Company. The Colonial Revival building was erected in 1949, dominated by a three-tier tower.The first tier is made of brick with stone quoins embellishing the corners. There is a balustrade with turned spindles around the upper edge of this tier. The second tier is also wooden with a spindle-turned balustrade. Above this is an octagonally-shaped tier with tall, narrow arched openings.

Pendleton, South Carolina

This Greek Revival structure has been the centerpiece of Pendleton life for over 180 years. It is the oldest Farmers Hall still in continuous use in the United States. The ground floor has always been reserved for commercial trade and on the second floor was the town meeting hall. The village green was the site of the old courthouse; the quartet of sturdy Doric columns were added in 1848. It was in this hall that Thomas Green Clemson campaigned for a state agricultural college that is Clemson University today. John C. Calhoun, a leading advocate of states’ rights in the early 1800s a Vice-Presidnet under John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, was among the members of the Farmer’s Society.

East Greenwich, Rhode Island

When East Greenwich was established as the Kent County seat in 1750 the first courthouse was constructed on this site. In 1775, it was the practice of the General Assembly to rotate among the five Rhode Island counties. When the wheel landed on East Greenwich in 1764 the legislature established the school that would become Brown University; in 1775 the legislature passed the resolution that created the United States Navy. That original building was replaced in 1804 with this handsome Federal-style structure built by Oliver Wickes, a Revolutionary War veteran. Wickes added some Revolutionary-era styling as well with the square tower and decorative corner quoins. History continued to be made here (or at least close by) - in September 1842 the convention for the framing of the Rhode Island Constitution met here but when the heating system failed the meeting was adjourned and the final vote actually taken in the Methodist church several blocks away.

In the early days the courtyard had on one side of its walk a liberty pole and on the other a whipping post. The building, by far the largest structure in Kent County in its day, s listed in the National Register of Historic Places. After 1854 the General Assembly restricted its activities to Providence and Newport but the building continued in use as a Courthourse and cases were heard here until 1978. After many years of vacancy and neglect the Courthouse was given a $2.3 million make-over for re-use as the East Greenwich Town Hall.

Honesdale, Pennsylvania

The first county courthouse was in Bethany, the county seat from 1800 to 1841. During the legislative sessions of 1840-41, Senator Ebenezer Kingsbury quietly secured the passage of an act for removal. Honesdale became the county seat and on May 4, 1841 the county commissioners accepted a plot of land opposite the public square for the county buildings. The land was a joint gift of the Jason Torrey estate and the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company.

After many years of discussion of the need for a new building, the commissioners adopted a resolution to begin construction in 1876. J.A. Wood of New York was selected as architect and the massive stone walls of the foundation were begun. During the next two years, little progress was made on the structure as “The Courthouse Wars” raged. Taxpayers were angry, legal disputes abounded  and political disputes flared. Finally the commissioners resolved to complete the building and $130,000 later, the new Italianate courthouse was ready in 1880.

Woonsocket, Rhode Island

The oldest section of this building was constructed by Edward Harris in 1856 and was known as the Harris Block. Built in the Italiante style, it was Woonsocket’s first major commercial building and the first public library in Rhode Island. Abraham Lincoln spoke in the building’s Harris Hall in 1860. In 1889, a rugged, granite clad addition in the Richardson Romanesque style was added. The building became Woonsocket’s City Hall in 1902.

Winnsboro, South Carolina

Fairfield County’s Court House was built in 1822 by William McCreight under the supervision of Robert Mills, constructed with English ballast brick brought to Charleston. It was remodeled in 1939, retaining the Mills design but adding two rear wings and the flying stairways.

Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania

Throughout its planning and construction in the first decade of the 20th century, controversy and scandal swirled around the Beaux Arts courthouse. Pittsburgh architect F. J. Osterling originally designed it to be placed on Public Square. It was finally completed by architects McCormick and French, who designed the lavish interior with its stunning rotunda. Step inside to see the history of the county illustrated in mosaics and murals.

Built during the period of Wilkes-Barre’s greatest prosperity, the Luzerne Court House is now a treasured local landmark. The site of the Court House was once the Public Basin of the Wyoming Division of the North Branch Canal. From 1834 to 1881, when the last canal boat left Wilkes-Barre, the canal was a major means of transporting coal and other commodities in and out of the Wyoming Valley.

On the courthouse lawn are memorials to the county’s war dead and the anchor of the USS Wilkes-Barre, a World War II cruiser. The nearby cast-iron deer is a relic of the 1850s, when the courthouse sat on Public Square. Local wags would commonly cite the deer as a source of courthouse gossip in newspaper columns.

Gloucester, Massachusetts

Gloucester built a substantial brick Town Hall with an imposing projecting clock tower on this site in 1868. The next year a disastrous fire leveled the buidling, taking with it a panorama local artist Fitz Hugh Lane had bequeathed to the town.

Built in 1870 on the foundation of the previous structure, this brick-and-stone High Victorian-style building by Bryant & Rogers of Boston features twin towers over the Warren Street entrance. The ornate clock tower rises 194 feet above sea level and is a conspicuous landmark from land or sea. Murals reflecting the city’s history adorn walls in the main lobby and on the third floor.

Waterbury, Connecticut

Waterbury’s first City Hall, built on West Main Street facing the Green in 1869, went up in flames in 1912, torched by an arsonist. Cass Gilbert, one of America’s foremost architects of monumental buildings, won the commission for this replacement and work was begun in 1914. Gilbert used Vermont marble and North Haven brick to create a Colonial design, built around a rectangular court laid out as a sunken Italian garden. The lower story features white marble laid in rusticated courses while the upper stories are red brick with white marble Corinthian pilasters. In recent years, suffering from years of neglect and vandalism, the building has been condemned by the City’s own building department. Preservationists are at work to get City Hall to see its 100th birthday.

Salisbury, Maryland

Following the partition in 1867 of Somerset and Worcester counties in order to create Wicomico County, various government offices were scattered around Salisbury’s central business district. In 1878 E.M. Butz designed this Victorian Gothic courthouse - built on the site of the historic Byrd Tavern, a famous hostelry in stage coach days - consolidated the city services, including the fire department and a jail. The exuberant facade features patterned and colored bricks with stone inserts. After fire destroyed the entire downtown area in 1886, it was the only building left standing. Since the 1930s the Courthouse has seen three enlargements.

Walterboro, South Carolina

The Greek Revival portico is attributed to Robert Mills, South Carolina native son and designer of the Washington Monument, and built by Charleston contractors in 1822 at the coast of $20,750. The Colleton County Courthouse is a handsomely designed brick building stuccoed to represent stone. The entrance façade contains curved stairways with ironwork railings leading to a raised portico with an ironwork balustrade. Four Tuscan columns support the portico’s massive, undecorated entablature. The portico is framed by two pilasters and shelters a double, four-paneled door with sidelights and transom. The roofline is formed by a parapet extending the full width of the entrance façade, where it is surmounted by a shorter, second parapet. An arcaded entrance is below the raised portico. Two large wings were added to the original building in 1939. The first public meeting on nullification was held here in June 1828 when Robert Barnwell Rhett delivered his militant “Walterboro Address” urging Governor John Taylor to call an immediate session of the state legislature for the purpose of openly resisting tariff laws.

Amherst, Massachusetts

The present Town Hall was constructed on the site of the Palmer Block, a large brick building named after leading citizen Dwight Palmer which burned at the height of the blizzard on March 11, 1888. Since Palmer Hall was already the location for town meetings, the Town immediately purchased the block and constructed a sturdy, fireproof Town Hall. The popular Richardson Romanesque Style was designed by H.S. McKay of Boston and built for a total of $58,000!

This building, now cherished by the town, caused so much controversy and dissent as it was being constructed that the Amherst Record had this comment in 1890: “We should bear in mind the fact that the architect of the Cathedral at Milan, backed by the wealth of the universe, could not have designed a village horse-shed that would meet with universal favor at the hands of the citizens of Amherst.”