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.