Sumter, South Carolina

The Beaux Arts-inspired Sumter County Courthouse was one of nine courthouses designed byWilliam Augustus Edwards, a prominent South Carolina architect of the early twentieth century. It replaced a brick-and-stucco building designed by Robert Mills and completed in 1821. Edwards designed an I-plan courthouse, set in the center of a deep open block that ran all the way from Main to Harvin Street. The I-plan was a popular design for courthouses all over country at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century.