The courthouse in Coshocton county in Ohio was built in the 1800s. It is a large brick building with a huge mechanical clock in a spire. I'm sure that most of you have seen an old building like this. I have been in it many times over the 40 years I lived there. When you enter the building you have to go thru 2 huge black iron doors. Or at least that is what I thought. Once while waiting in line, I saw a guy I knew, who was a janitor there. He told me that the woodwork was all black walnut, including those huge (iron) doors. All I could say was,"WOW"

 Fast forward a few years and my last visit I drove by and discovered those doors were replaced with modern glass and aluminum doors. I sure would like to know what happened to all that black walnut.

Hope somebody got to use it.

One of the county employees took them home nailed some 2X4 legs on and made a workbench out of them.

I hope that's true, better than winding up in a dumpster (barely).

This is distressing news Ron

 

I love looking at and visiting court houses (voluntarily...) around the country.  These older court houses were built during our (mine anyhow) great grandparents generation.  No disrespect intended, but IMHO, our greats and grandparents were the "greatest generations" when it comes to building the U.S.   Remember, this is all IMHO... those generations, from about 1880-1940's built the foundations for this country's infrastructure.  "Modern U.S. history";  they built the county courthouses - and spent good money to see that they were centers for the county and landmarks of which they were proud.  They built roads and bridges, and began paving them, they expanded the rail system and started building cities "up" with taller and taller skyscrapers.  The infrastructure and buildings they put out there were designed and built for the long haul, not 30 or 40 years (or less).  And they saw tragedy with World War I, and the great depression - and took positive steps to prevent such from occurring again, unsuccessfully with the League of Nations, but they tried.  Their eyes were focused on the future and to make things better for their succeeding generations.  They paid extra taxes to build a more spectacular courthouse and to build roads and bridges that would be used for the next 50+ years.

 

In the finance world there is a rule of thumb concerning small businesses.  They last into the 3rd generation.  The first gen starts the business, the second one grows and expands the business, the third generation makes bad decisions and either loses the business or sells it off.  Sad, but it is seen so often that it is a "rule of thumb".

 

This is where I might normally get on a soapbox and begin fussing about our parents and our generations as being the "third gen" into modern U.S. history.

But I won't...

 

Instead, here is a pic of the Coshocton County courthouse pulled from their website.  Not my favorite architecture, but still an impressive building for 1800's.

 

Well said, Cal! 

The old courthouse in my home town of Jena ,La was torn down in 1968 and they had use dynamite to take it down it was so solid. I do no know when it was built. Note this was a postcard and whoever wrote on it was not from Louisiana where they have parishes and not counties.

 

Gerald, do you know why they tore down the original courthouse?  It would have been built some time after 1910, so not all that old in terms of county courthouses...

I haven't gone to Google street view, but the Parish's homepage only has a small pic of the entrance to the current facility.  Is the new courthouse on the same grounds as the old one?

Yes it is in the same spot exactly. No one seems to know the reason but the new one appears to be much larger and is not a multistory. On this same lot behind the courthouse was the city jail. As I remember it was two story and red brick to match courthouse.

On 12/6/2019 at 8:33 AM, Gene Howe said:

Well said, Cal! 

X2!