Photos of Indiana's Historic Courthouses, along with some others
Although it’s been bypassed by the interstate, Indiana State Highway 3 still provides a scenic route through the countryside of northeastern Indiana. I’d become acquainted with the road from trips to visit family during my childhood, but it took constant weekend drives back home to Muncie from my Fort Wayne apartment to become intimate with […]
Read More Blackford County- Hartford City (1894-)Six-year-old me spent a lot of time in the back seat traveling across the state to a family Christmas here or an Easter there, and the historic courthouses I’d see downtown made a huge impression. Once we got to my grandparents’ houses in Fort Wayne or Pendleton, I’d find some continuous-feed paper, peel the edges […]
Read More Hamilton County- Noblesville (1879-1992)I’ve admired the Noble County Courthouse in Albion since I was a kid. I remember driving past it with my dad and going inside for one thing or another. Even at a young age, I knew that this courthouse was unique- it didn’t really resemble any others in the state. Although I seem to recall […]
Read More Noble County- Albion (1887-)Imagine an era before you had a phone in your pocket or feverishly clutched in your hand. How would you tell time? Well, you’d probably use a watch. But what about before that? A sundial? That’s going a little too far back- put yourself in the shoes of an 1800s Hoosier, not an Egyptian.
Read More Adams County- Decatur (1872-)It’s weird to think of today, but Indiana’s only been a state for a little more than two hundred years. It was a frontier not so long ago, and although sometimes those frontier settlements turned into cities like Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, or Evansville, most of them didn’t. Some continue to thrive as small towns, and […]
Read More Wayne County- Richmond (1893-)The level of scorn commonly heaped onto Indiana’s modern courthouses sort of amazes me for a couple of reasons. The first is that 84 out 92 counties in Indiana still retain at least one historic courthouse- that’s 92 percent! Modern courthouses are rare around these parts, and that makes them a little more special to me. The […]
Read More Madison County- Anderson (1972-)So far in Indiana, we’ve lost 26 historic courthouses to fire1, seven to disrepair, and one to a damn tornado. Fortunately, the losses have died off in the last thirty years, and the trend’s actually reversed. Today, we’re left with three out of three remaining art deco courthouses in the state. If Robert Gray had […]
Read More Howard County- Kokomo (1937-)Have you ever wanted to tear down an old courthouse, but couldn’t because of an obscure law dictating that the courthouse square had to hold a courthouse at all times or else its ownership would revert to the heirs of the guy who deeded it to you in the first place more than a century […]
Read More Lawrence County- Bedford (1870/1930-)