The Cass County Courthouse in

Atlantic, Iowa Atlantic is a city in and the county seat of Cass County, Iowa, United States, located along the East Nishnabotna River. The population was 6,792 in the 2020 census, a decline from the 7,257 population in 2000. History Atlantic was founded ...

, United States, was built in 1934 as the first courthouse in the state built with funding from the Public Works Administration (PWA). 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 ...

in 2003 as a part of the PWA-Era County Courthouses of Iowa Multiple Properties Submission. The courthouse is the third structure to house court functions and county administration.

History

Cass County was organized in 1853. The first county commissioners met in Indiantown and chose a place called Lewis as 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 ...

where they used a two-story house for the courthouse. The

Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad The Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad (CRI&P RW, sometimes called ''Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railway'') was an American Class I railroad. It was also known as the Rock Island Line, or, in its final years, The Rock. At the end ...

extended tracks to Atlantic and the town offered the county land for a new courthouse. In 1869, the county accepted Atlantic's offer and constructed a small frame building on the site. The building soon proved to be inadequate and the county rented the nearby Park House to provide additional space. In 1888, the county spent $50,000 to erect a new two-story brick and stone courthouse that featured a clock tower. It was destroyed by fire in March 1932. Because of the Great Depression, the first

referendum A referendum (plural: referendums or less commonly referenda) is a direct vote by the electorate on a proposal, law, or political issue. This is in contrast to an issue being voted on by a representative. This may result in the adoption of a ...

to build a new courthouse failed in the General Election of 1932. The following year President Franklin Delano Roosevelt began the PWA, and Cass County was the first of ten counties in

Iowa Iowa () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to th ...

to receive such funding. with Voters passed the second referendum in 1933 and the county retained the Des Moines architectural firm of Dougher, Rich & Woodburn to design the new building. C.C. Larsen Co. of Council Bluffs, Iowa won the bid to construct the building and work began in March 1934. It was built for $119,000. The new building was dedicated on December 26, 1934, with Governor

Clyde L. Herring Clyde LaVerne Herring (May 3, 1879September 15, 1945), an American Democratic politician who served as the 26th governor of Iowa, and then one of its U.S. senators, during the last part of the Great Depression and the first part of World Wa ...

as the main speaker. Dougher, Rich & Woodburn was able to save three other Iowa counties money by providing a similar design for their county's new courthouse. Newspapers in Buchanan and Humboldt counties printed drawings that were nearly identical when they were planning to build new courthouses in the 1930s. A two-bay garage of matching brick was built in the southwest corner of the square shortly after the courthouse was completed. Around 1984 a 1½-story addition was built onto the west side of the courthouse for a correctional facility.

Architecture

The architectural style of the building is known as Depression Modern or PWA Moderne. The building features a symmetrical

façade A façade () (also written facade) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a loan word from the French (), which means ' frontage' or ' face'. In architecture, the façade of a building is often the most important aspect ...

with a central section flanked by two lower wings. The exterior is composed of buff-colored brick and Bedford limestone trim. It is three stories tall above a raised basement. On the interior, central corridors on each floor extend the length of the building, with the offices opening onto the corridors. The building features multi-colored

terrazzo Terrazzo is a composite material, poured in place or precast, which is used for floor and wall treatments. It consists of chips of marble, quartz, granite, glass, or other suitable material, poured with a cementitious binder (for chemical bind ...

floors, marble

wainscoting Panelling (or paneling in the U.S.) is a millwork wall covering constructed from rigid or semi-rigid components. These are traditionally interlocking wood, but could be plastic or other materials. Panelling was developed in antiquity to make ro ...

, and acoustic tiles. The three tall windows with decorative metal grills that extend from the second to the third floors of the main elevation mark the location of the courtroom, which was decorated in dark wood tones and

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

ornamentation. The exterior of the adjoining correctional facility is composed of similar colored brick as the courthouse, and it has no windows. The building is located on the courthouse square to the south of the central business district, where the previous courthouse was also located. There are three other elements that are

contributing properties In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic distri ...

on the courthouse's nomination to the National Register of Historic Places. The square itself is a

contributing site In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic distric ...

, what is believed to be the original flagpole is a

contributing object In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic distric ...

, and the two-bay garage is another

contributing building In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic distric ...

References

{{NRHP in Cass County, Iowa Government buildings completed in 1934 County courthouses in Iowa PWA Moderne architecture in Iowa Atlantic, Iowa Buildings and structures in Cass County, Iowa National Register of Historic Places in Cass County, Iowa Courthouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Iowa Public Works Administration in Iowa 1934 establishments in Iowa