The Baxter County Courthouse is a

courthouse A courthouse or court house is a building that is home to a local court of law and often the regional county government as well, although this is not the case in some larger cities. The term is common in North America. In most other English-spe ...

Mountain Home, Arkansas Mountain Home is a city in, and the county seat of, Baxter County, Arkansas, United States, in the southern Ozark Mountains near the northern state border with Missouri. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 12,448. A total of 41, ...

, United States, the

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or civil parish. The term is in use in Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, Taiwan, and the United States. The equivalent term shire town is used in the US st ...

of Baxter County, built in 1941. It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1995. The building replaced another courthouse on the same site which was deemed unsafe in 1939.

History

Baxter County was established on March 24, 1873 by the

Arkansas General Assembly The General Assembly of Arkansas is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Arkansas. The legislature is a bicameral body composed of the upper house Arkansas Senate with 35 members, and the lower Arkansas House of Representatives with 100 ...

from parts of four neighboring counties. The county seat was established at Mountain Home, which was a community atop a plateau between the North Fork River and White River. County government initially inhabited the

Jacob Wolf House The Jacob Wolf House is a historic house on Arkansas Highway 5 in Norfork, Arkansas. It is a log structure, built in 1825 by Jacob Wolf, the first documented white settler of the area. Architecturally it's a "saddle bag", which is a two-story ...

in Norfork. Today, the structure is the oldest standing county courthouse in Arkansas, built in 1811.

Building the courthouse

County Judge R. M. Ruthven declared the county courthouse to be unsafe and too small for county needs in 1939. Ruthven was instrumental in the construction of the Cotter Bridge in Baxter County which opened the area to commerce in 1928. The courthouse was expanded from two to three stories as a method to keep the county seat in Mountain Home in response to a 1912 state law which kept county seats from moving out of three story buildings. Ruthven acquired the services of T. Ewing Shelton, an

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

from

Fayetteville, Arkansas Fayetteville () is the second-largest city in Arkansas, the county seat of Washington County, and the biggest city in Northwest Arkansas. The city is on the outskirts of the Boston Mountains, deep within the Ozarks. Known as Washington until ...

to draft plans for a new courthouse. The plans were received and approved by voters, despite protests by Gassville and Cotter residents who wanted the county seat relocated to their cities with greater populations. During the 1940s, Baxter County was very depressed economically and the

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...

(WPA) was active in the county. Mountain Home was a shrinking community with little industry and few paved roads. As a county, Baxter County saw many farmers abandon their farms and move away during the 1940s. Construction began on the

Norfork Dam Norfork Dam is a large dam in northern Arkansas southeast of Mountain Home. It dams North Fork River and creates Norfork Lake. The top of the dam supports a 2-lane roadway, part of AR 177. History In the late 1930s, before construction of t ...

in 1941 and the

Bull Shoals Dam Bull Shoals Dam is a concrete gravity dam on the White River in northern Arkansas in the United States. The dam lies on the border of Marion and Baxter Counties, and forms Bull Shoals Lake, which extends well northwest into Missouri. Its main p ...

in 1947. The courthouse project received state approval as a WPA project the following year and construction began after razing the old courthouse in August 1941.

Opening

The new building was unveiled for county courthouse functions in August 1943. It contained all county offices, a courtroom, office space to be rented to lawyers, and the county library. Today many offices have left the courthouse.

References

{{National Register of Historic Places Courthouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Arkansas County courthouses in Arkansas Government buildings completed in 1941 Streamline Moderne architecture in the United States National Register of Historic Places in Baxter County, Arkansas Historic district contributing properties in Arkansas Mountain Home, Arkansas 1941 establishments in Arkansas

History

Building the courthouse

Opening

See also

References