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Washington County Courthouse
prepared for
a public program given in 1980 by Nancy Gabby
(Judge Jon Stewart was interviewed in preparation for
the presentation.)
Washington County was organized from unorganized
territory in 1854 (fourteen years before Blair became a
town). At that time Fort Calhoun was designated as the
county seat. The log cabin that was built in 1854 in
Calhoun to house the court sessions had the distinction
of being the first building erected west of the Missouri
River for that purpose.
In the early days every new town (and they were all new)
was ambitious to become the county seat. Washington
County had its full share of aspiring towns - De Soto,
Fort Calhoun Rockport, Cuming City and Fontenelle.
De Soto, a small village five miles north of Fort
Calhoun and site of the present nuclear plant, wanted
the county seat to be moved there. In the winter of 1858
a crowd of De Soto citizens organized and with arms went
to Fort Calhoun to take the county seat by force. Fort
Calhoun residents barricaded themselves in the log
courthouse and held off the De Soto band until the
afternoon of the second day, when by compromise the
county seat was turned over to De Soto. One man was
killed in the conflict.
The county seat remained in De Soto until an election in
the fall of 1866, when the people voted to move it back
to Ft. Calhoun.
From the time of its beginnings, it became apparent that
Blair was to be the county seat. In 1869 by vote of the
people the county seat was moved from Ft. Calhoun to
Blair. The first courthouse at Blair was of brick, a
large roomy building, and was used for a good many
years. This building was originally intended for a
school and was sold to the county by a firm of
contractors. Church services were also held at the
courthouse.
The time came when the people demanded a more elegant
building be erected as a courthouse. Many of the local
farmers were opposed to this because it would be
necessary to float bonds for the building's
construction. In order to convince the public of the
necessity of a new building, the commissioners declared
the old courthouse unsafe and propped timbers up against
the outside wall. This sight hurt the pride of the
citizens and when the time came to vote on the bonds,
the proposal carried by a large majority. The present
courthouse was erected in 1889 for $60,000. It took over
1 1/2 years to complete the project.
The county board ordered that the new courthouse should
be erected on the so-called Jail Block. The county jail,
built in 1870, also stood there. It was a two story
building erected at a cost of $8,000, which was an
enormous sum of money to pay for a jail at that time.
The county soon learned its lesson about jail
construction the hard way. A murderer imprisoned there
made his escape by scraping the soft limestone
foundation with a table knife until there was a hole
large enough to crawl out. He was never seen again, and
for many years the outline of this hole was pointed out
to interested spectators.
At the session of the county board held September 11,
1889, the site of the courthouse was staked off and
decided upon. At the same session it was ordered that
the numerous shade trees upon the courthouse square be
"boxed" in order to protect them from building
operations. Even in the early days of Blair's history
the community took great pride in its beautiful trees.
The architect employed by the county to draw plans was
O.H. Placey. After the courthouse was partially built,
he became offended and resigned. Following is noted in
the record book of the court board. The date was
November 1889:
"And now comes O.H. Placey, architect, and
announces to the board in open session, that from this
time on, he positively refuses to have anything to do,
in and about the further work and completion of the
new courthouse, and bid the board good-bye and took
his hat and passed out."
The cornerstone was laid December 13, 1889. (The box was
taken out 100 years later and the contents revealed.)
The building was not completed and turned over to the
county until March 24, 1891. The old courthouse was sold
to F.H. Matthiesen for $725.00.
Richards and Company was awarded the contract to build
the courthouse. A local man, Lou Vaughn, was appointed
by the board to be superintendent of construction.
The building was constructed of St. Louis pressed brick
and trimmed with Worrenburg sandstone. Much of the brick
was made in local brickyards.
There are many unique features on the outside of the
building. Several different designs are over the
windows, which include rosettes and stars. All the
corners of the windows have a shell design.
The north gable features metal sculptures and includes
the horn of plenty, which contains clusters of flowers,
corn, pumpkins and grapes. There is also a sailing ship
surrounded by boxes and barrels, an anchor, a cogwheel
and another group of pumpkins. There is a shield, which
was at one time draped but the drape has disappeared due
to the effects of wind and weather.
The west gable sculptures are also made of tin. These
sculptures include the horn of plenty, which is empty
now but once contained the same items as the sculpture
on the north side. There is a stock of wheat, tied with
a rope and a hand scythe tucked under the rope, a group
of pumpkins and a shield also without the original
drape.
The first floor was called the basement on the original
plans and the basement, as we know it now, was
considered the foundation. The strong foundation
probably was the reason the building is still standing.
There are hundreds of through bolts, which stabilize the
walls. There are smaller rooms on the first floor
because of extra walls built for support of upper floor.
The hallways still have the original marble over wood.
The dome is made of tin. There is a narrow winding
stairway to the tower. At one time a man climbed up into
the tower every day to fly the American flag. This
became too dangerous and the procedure was stopped in
the 1970's. The round windows in the dome were supposed
to hold large clocks, but none were ever put in.
A landmark in the courthouse square is the monument
erected in honor of the Civil War soldiers buried in
Washington County. The statue was dedicated Memorial
Day, 1898. It was originally intended for another town
but the soldier's musket had been damaged so that town
refused to pay for it. The statue was held in Omaha for
freight charges. The cost was to have been $1600, but
Blair purchased it from the railroad for a mere $60. The
statue stood in the middle of Walker Avenue (16th
Street) between the schoolhouse and the courthouse until
1939 when the city decided the statue was a traffic
hazard and moved it to its present location.
In 1904 the old jail was torn down and replaced by a
one-story building, which stood east of the courthouse.
In 1939 that building, too, was destroyed and the jail
was placed in a corner room of the courthouse by the
boiler room. This jail was used until the new complex we
have today was built. At one time there was a ladies
jail on the third floor.
The lower part of the courthouse was turned into welfare
offices in the 1930's. Residents turned to the county
for aid during the depression resulting in long "bread
lines" outside the courthouse. Orange crates were used
for files because funding for office equipment was at a
minimum. Lyle Guyer was the first Washington County
Welfare Director.
Every office on the first level has a vault with a total
of four vaults in all. The doors of the vaults are
painted with different scenes. The walls into the vaults
are 24" thick, and the walls between the rooms are 18"
thick.
Original probates, taxes and deeds were kept in the
vaults along with marriage, adoption and criminal
records. Two years of marriage records (1863-1865) in
Washington County are missing.
The four corner chimneys were designed for the sixteen
fireplaces, eight on each floor. The fireplaces have
slate hearths and are covered by metal doors, probably
the original design. The fire areas in the fireplaces
are small and it is likely they were never used to heat
the building as steam radiators were soon installed.
Many of the fireplaces can still be seen but a few have
been covered during periods of remodeling.
There were eight to ten corner sinks made of Italian
marble in the bathrooms but all, with the exception of
one on the top floor, have disappeared.
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Hanging at the Courthouse -- 1890
The
courthouse square was the scene of the one black
page in our county's history. On August 15, 1890, a
mob of two hundred hysterical men hauled a Charles
Pratt out of the jail and hanged him to the nearest
tree.
Pratt had
confessed to the killing earlier in the day of
Nelson Town, a highly respected farmer near Kennard,
and the attempted murder of Town's pretty
nineteen-year-old daughter, Hattie. Blair residents
were horrified when they learned of the crime, and
the sheriff immediately appointed fifteen deputies
to surround the jail.
As
darkness fell, crowds began gathering at the corner
of Colfax and 16th Streets and as far away as the
Methodist church corner. Promptly at midnight, a
yell went out and the mob swept sheriff and deputies
aside and dragged Pratt calm and defiant out into
the yard, where a rope had been slung over a tree.
Pratt, when asked if he had any last words, replied,
"You couldn't give a fellow a chew of tobacco before
you pull him up, could you?"
Someone
in the crowd obliged, Pratt chewed reflectively, the
rope tightened and he swung upward to his death. The
crowds dispersed quietly, leaving the body dangling
from the tree until the next morning, when it was
cut down and buried in Potters Field.
There was
a barrage of press criticism from all over the
state, but the local paper seemed to condone the
mob's actions with the following words: "These men
were the embodiment of law itself. They were a power
higher than law, whose number gave their act
respectability and the public sanction."
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The District Court room was the main room on the second
floor when the courthouse was originally built. The only
other rooms on that floor contained an office, jury room
and judge's room. The judge's bench was once on the
south wall, but the whole set up of the room was moved a
quarter turn to the west in 1973. Two more offices were
gained as a result.
The original seats in the District Courtroom have been
replaced. It is interesting to note that they were
purchased from the same company (American Seating) that
made the seats installed in the new Blair High
Auditorium some ninety years later.
There are twelve jury chairs and one witness chair in
the courtroom that are originals. The leather seats have
been recovered with fabric. The chairs are currently
arranged around the original curved docket rails. The
ceiling in the room was at one time thirty feet high and
had an ornate metal covering but it has been lowered in
recent years.
The scribe's table is in the surveyor's office but at
one time held the long ledgers that clerks wrote in
during court sessions. The oak table in the law library
is also original.
In 1890 one room in the courthouse held the town
library.
The courthouse was completely renovated in the spring of
1936 as a WPA project. The total cost was $10,000. The
biggest change was the rebuilding of the inside north
and south stairways.
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