Columbia, South Carolina

This is Columbia’s fourth City Hall, one with a distinguished pedigree. It was designed as the United States Courthouse and Post Office by Federal Supervising Architect Alfred B. Mullet in the 1870s. An early example of Renaissance Revival architecture, tt was completed in 1876 at a total cost of over $400,000. When the federal judiciary outgrew the building in the 1920s, Mayor L.B. Owens swapped land for a new courthouse for this building.

Bridgeport, Connecticut

Bridgeport and Norwalk jockeyed to be the home of the Fairfield County seat until Bridgeport ponied up money to construct the courthouse in the 1850s. In the 1880s it was decided to build a new courthouse. Again Norwalk lobbied for the county seat and this time offered $100,000. But Bridgeport came back with a $150,000 bid. Warren R. Biggs brought the concepts of brawny, rough-cut rounded arches of leading American architect Henry Hobson Richardson to Golden Hill in 1888 for the new Fairfield County Courthouse. Today it is Geographical Area Courthouse No. 2, where all but the most serious criminal cases are heard.

Bordentown, New Jersey

This was Bordentown’s second town hall, constructed of brick with stone trim in 1888. The Romanesque-inspired building is distinguished by its wooden clock tower containing a clock by premiere American clock-maker Seth Thomas. The clock tower is dedicated to William F. Allen, a Bordentown native who created standard time in the United States. In the 19th century each new railroad used its own time, published in its schedules. This worked fine unless the line ran into a city that served other lines; Pittsburgh, for instance had to post information in its main station for six different times. Allen, the editor of the Traveler’s Official Railway Guide, drew up the plan for “standard time” by running the borders through existing major cities.  It was inaugurated on Sunday, November 18, 1883, also called “The Day of Two Noons”, when each railroad station clock was reset as standard-time noon was reached within each time zone.

Utica, New York

The first Utica school, courthouse and town hall were all constructed in 1818. A new courthouse on John Street was built to the rear of the old one in 1851. This Neoclassical house of justice was constructed in 1909 over the objections of the County Board of Supervisors which had to be defeated in court to obtain the necessary one million dollars for its completion. The Oneida County Courthouse originally featured Ionic column-supported pediments at either end but they have been removed to expose more of the Palladian windows that march across the facade.

York, Pennsylvania

This is courthouse number three for York County. A replica of the first one was where the tour started; its replacement rose here in 1840. The ever-busy John Dempwolf was called in for a redesign in 1898 and he incorporated the Ionic columns you see today from that courthouse into his design. He topped the courthouse with three distinctive domes inspired by the Florence (Italy) Cathedral. The classical domes feature both Corinthian and rectangular pilasters, sculptured leaf roof elements, window pediments, dentil course, and—in the main cupola—a bell. The new courthouse was initially covered in yellow brick, including the central portion of the 1840 building. The courthouse expanded in 1957, receiving east and west wings and a facade replacement in red brick.

Norwalk, Connecticut

This Colonial Revival brick building began life as the South Norwalk City Hall, constructed in 1912 on the plans by New York architects Joel D. Barber and Frank Bissell. When Norwalk consolidated the next year it became the headquarters for the entire city and remained so until 1988. When City Hall was moved across the river to East Avenue its parking lot just happened to swallow the front lawn of the Norwalk Museum causing a slide in attendance. Turn about is fair play and in 1995 the museum moved into the newly spruced up original City Hall.

Wellsboro, Pennsylvania

Tioga County was formed on March 26, 1804 from parts of Lycoming County. The name, derived from an Indian word meaning “the forks of a stream”, honors the Tioga River. The county seat got this Colonial Courthouse, with cupola, in 1835. It is constructed of native sandstone and conglomerate, which was hauled on ox sleds for several miles over poor roads; high on the southwest wall is carved the outline of an eagle, insignia of one of the stonecutters from the neighboring Welsh settlement.

Soon after the formation of Mercer County in 1838, a Greek Revival structure was erected on the top of Mill Hill. In 1852 Daniel Webster, one of America’s greatest orators and lawyers won a patnet infringement case for Charles Goodyear in that courthouse that paved the way for America’s greatest rubber company. In 1903 the current Beaux Arts sandstone building, with its pediments, columns and arches grand, classical structure was built.

Greenville, South Carolina

The Greenville County Courthouse, the fourth building employed in this capacity, is significant as an example of early twentieth century public architecture on a monumental scale in the piedmont South, for the high quality of its design and construction, and for its association with prominent Georgia architect Phillip Thornton Marye. The courthouse is the only existing public Beaux Arts style building in Greenville County. Behind it rises an eight-story tower. The building served as the courthouse for Greenville County until 1950.

Pawtucket, Rhode Island

New Deal funding in the 1930s made possible this mammoth civic building. John O’Malley designed the new city hall in the Art Deco style - unusual for New England - with a soaring central tower that displays the clean lines emblematic of the Art Deco movement. The tower is marked by four splendid concrete eagles. City Hall, now on the National Register of Historic Places, has been restored twice. in the first go-round back in 1974 somehow it was deemed a good idea to cover the 143-foot tower in unsightly yellow brick and strip away the eagles. The most recent restoration put the soaring eagles back in flight and won a preservation award.

Newport, Rhode Island

The Colony House served as one of five rotating state houses for the Rhode Island General Assembly until 1901 and today is the fourth oldest surviving state house in the United States. From this brick assembly house, constructed in 1739, came the news of the most important changes of the 18th century. The official death of George II and the ascendancy of George III was read here, and so was the Declaration of Independence on July 20, 1776. Rhode Island became the final state to accept the new republic’s Constitution in the Old Colony House in 1790. In March of 1781 General Washington greeted French lieutenant general Count de Rochambeau here in 1781. A portrait of Washington by native son Gilbert Stuart is in the collection of the Newport Colony House.

New Brunswick, New Jersey

Scottish-born Alexander Merchant was born in 1872 to a father who worked as a purser on the National Line sailing between Liverpool and New York City. The family settled in Queens before the boy’s school years which lasted until he was 16 and he began an apprenticeship in shop of architect D.D. Williamson in New Brunswick. When he obtained his license ten years later he set up his practice across the Raritan River in Highland Park where he became the most influential designer in town in the first decades of the 1900s. He was the architect for hundreds of public and commercial buildings in central New Jersey and his interpretation of an early Colonial town hall was executed in 1927.