Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

City Hall is built on the area designated by William Penn as Centre Square. It was a public square
from the city’s founding in 1682 until construction of City Hall began upon the site in 1871.
Working on a French Second Empire design by Scottish architect John McArthur, Jr., it was
intended to be the tallest building in th world but when it was finally finished 30 years - and eight
mayors - later City Hall was surpassed by both the Eiffel Tower and Washington Monument.
Instead, it hung its hat on the fact that at 547 feet it was the world’s tallest habitable building, a title
it held for less than a decade. Today it remains the tallest masonry building ever constructed.

The building is topped by an 11.3-m (37 ft), 27-ton bronze statue of city founder William Penn,
one of 250 sculptures created by Alexander Milne Calder that adorn the building inside and out.
The statue is the tallest atop any building in the world. Penn’s statue is hollow, and a narrow access
tunnel through it leads to a small (22-inch-diameter) hatch atop the hat.

Saratoga Springs, New York

The imposing City Hall that dominates its corner today was even more impressive when it was constructed in 1871. The three-story brick Italianate building designed by Cummings & Burt of Troy originally sported a central tower that held a bell weighing 5,276 pounds. At the peak of the tower was  a four-sided clock with a face six feet across. The price tag for the new government center, which included a two-story theater, was$109,999.46. In 1934 the belltower was declared unsafe and dismantled. The bronze lions that have stood guard at the entrance since the building’s completion received a restoration in 2009, along with new granite steps.

Salem, Massachusetts

Here’s a story you don’t hear much anymore. In 1837 the United States Treasury had a surplus of some 40 million dollars. So President Andrew Jackson gave the extra money to the various states who dispersed it among their cities and towns. Salem got $34,000 and used it to build a City Hall - and even then used only $22,000 of the free money. The City got a municipal building it has used for 175 years without using a single tax dollar. Boston architect Richard Bond designed the two-story building in the Greek Revival style with a granite street facade of four giant pilasters and brick walls on the other three sides. The eagle perched above City Hall is a gilded exact replica of one carved by Samuel McIntire that was damaged in a hurricane.

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.

Conway, South Carolina

This building served as the Horry County Courthouse when it was constructed in 1824-1825 on plans from Robert Mills, South Carolina native and America’s first native-born professional architect. Mills gave the building, replacing an earleir courthouse on Fifth Avenue, 30-inch thick fireproof brick walls with vaulted record rooms of massive arched masonry. In 1908 the current courthouse was constructed and the historic building was acquired by the City of Conway for use as its City Hall.

Rochester, New York

In most American towns when the old, ornate 19th century City Hall get old in the tooth and too expensive to maintain it is either restored as a public building, often a museum, or given a date with the wrecking ball. Here, this five-story building of Lockport Greystone from 1873 was redeveloped as private office space after a run of public service until 1977. The three-ton bell in its tower dates to 1851 and once hung in the second County Court House dome.

New Britain, Connecticut

Joseph Morrill Wells of America’s most prestigious architectural firm, McKim, Mead and White of New York City, designed this building in 1886. But not as a government building. The five-story Venetian showplace was the elegant Hotel Russwin when it opened. Constructed mostly of red brick, the lower two floors are set off by a five-bay brownstone arcade. The City of New Britain acquired this magnificent structure in 1909 and has done duty as City Hall ever since.

Titusville, Pennsylvania

Nelson Kingsland owned timber land, cleared it, and sold the lumber in the early 1860s to the contractors building Titusville’s houses. The building was remodeled in Greek Revival fashion as the grand Bush Hotel in 1865. Likely added at the time were the large pediment supported by  full-height, fluted columns with prominent Ionic capitals dominates the Franklin Street facade.  The small window with the semicircular hood seen in the pediment is inconsistent with the rectilinear and angular nature of Greek Revival.  This structure has served as Titusville’s City Hall since 1872.

Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania

When the Columbia County seat was moved from Danville to Bloomsburg in 1846, the town’s citizens raised private funds to erect the courthouse and jail. The original small brick courthouse had a front
portico with six Ionic columns, and a tower reaching eighty feet above the ground. The building has
been enlarged three times: rear extension in 1868, expansion to the front in 1891 (with a new
entrance and clock tower), and a second addition to the rear in 1938.

Toms River, New Jersey

After the southern half of Monmouth County was lopped off in 1850 to form Ocean County in 1850, Toms River was selected as the new seat of government over Lakehurst by a single vote. It has remained so ever since. The Greek Revival Ocean County Courthouse, fronted by a picket of fluted Doric columns, was ready by 1851 as was the Sheriff’s House, with ten attached jail cells, built behind the Courthouse by Robert Aitken for $4250. The Sheriffs and their families occupied this building for over 75 years. In 1950 the first of two additions were made to the west wing of the original Courthouse and as the county continued to grow the original building now anchors an entire mid-town complex.

Stockbridge, Massachusetts

This picturesque little red brick and terra cotta building with stepped gables and a rear tower was constructed in 1884 for use as town offices. The government has since left the Queen Anne gem for retail use.