COUNTY COURTHOUSE

 Location:  Court House Square, on Washington Street, between Alabama and Delaware streets.

    At the present rude structure, that has for so many years sufficed for the purposes of the courts and offices of the county, is in process of gradual dismemberment, to give way to a new and more becoming structure; it is the latter, as it will be when completed, that is to be described here.  The building will front on Washington street; the lineal extent of the front will be two hundred and seventy-five feet; the depth of the main building, one hundred and thirty feet; and that of the two wings, one hundred and four feet each.  The elevation of the main cornice will be eighty-one feet; and of the tower, two hundred feet.  The building will consist of three stories, with a basement and a Mansard roof.  Two minor towers, one at the extremity of each wing, will be about one hundred feet in hight [sic]. 

    The style of architecture is the Renaissance.  The ground floor will contain the several county offices; the second story, the courts, consultation, library, and witnesses' rooms; the third (a mezzanine), the jury rooms &c.  The basement will be devoted to general utility purposes.  Beneath the basement floor will be the heating apparatus.

    There will be three main entrances to the building; on the south, west and east.  The court and other rooms will be spacious, and appropriate in the style of their finish, with ceilings of great elevation.  The whole building will be traversed by spacious halls and corridors, and will be supplied with n abundance of light.  The ground plan is rectangular in form, and its entire linear extent is one thousand six hundred and eighty feet.  The plan makes due provisions for a jail building, jail yard, and Sheriff's residence in the rear, and comprehends two entrance gates on each side--the two on the north side being signed for carriages. 

    The plans are perfected, and the foundation is now rising.  It is calculated that the building will be completed in about four years, at an estimated cost of about $500,000.



Holloway, W. R., Indianapolis, a Historical and Statistical Sketch of the Railroad City, a Chronicle of Its Social, Municipal, Commercial and Manufacturing Progress, with Full Statistical Tables, © 1870, p. 259.  [see History for this book]

After this original courthouse, there was another constructed.  However, in 1963 the City-County Building was thereafter erected.  Here is a comparison of those buildings.

Here is also an article on the statues that were located originally at the County Courthouse in The Indiana Album.