Coles County Courthouse is a historic

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 ...

in Charleston,

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

. The courthouse is located in a public square in central Charleston and houses most of

Coles County, Illinois Coles County is a county in Illinois. As of the 2020 census, the population was 46,863. Its county seat is Charleston, which is also the home of Eastern Illinois University. Coles County is part of the Charleston- Mattoon, IL Micropolitan St ...

's administrative offices as well as its courts. It was built in 1898 and designed by

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

architect

C. W. Rapp C. W. & George L. Rapp, commonly known as Rapp & Rapp, was an American architectural firm famed for the design of movie palaces and other theatres. Active from 1906 to 1965 and based in Chicago, the office designed over 400 theatres, includ ...

in the

Richardsonian Romanesque Richardsonian Romanesque is a style of Romanesque Revival architecture named after the American architect Henry Hobson Richardson (1838–1886). The revival style incorporates 11th and 12th century southern French, Spanish, and Italian Romanesque ...

style. The building's exterior is faced in brown stone from the Embarras River; Bedford stone is used for several architectural details. The corners of the building feature

pavilion In architecture, ''pavilion'' has several meanings: * It may be a subsidiary building that is either positioned separately or as an attachment to a main building. Often it is associated with pleasure. In palaces and traditional mansions of Asia ...

s topped by pyramids, and a

clock tower Clock towers are a specific type of structure which house a turret clock and have one or more clock faces on the upper exterior walls. Many clock towers are freestanding structures but they can also adjoin or be located on top of another buildi ...

topped with a pyramid is situated atop the center of the courthouse. The four main entrances, located on each side of the building, feature an arcaded porch with recessed doors. The courthouse was added to 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 ...

on November 28, 1978.

References

Government buildings completed in 1898 Buildings and structures in Coles County, Illinois Romanesque Revival architecture in Illinois County courthouses in Illinois National Register of Historic Places in Coles County, Illinois Courthouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Illinois {{ColesCountyIL-NRHP-stub