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The Cuyahoga County Courthouse stretches along Lakeside Avenue at the north end of the Cleveland Mall in
downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district ...
Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the United States, U.S. U.S. state, state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along ...
,
Ohio Ohio () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Of the List of states and territories of the United States, fifty U.S. states, it is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 34th-l ...
. The building was listed on the
National Register 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 ...
along with the mall district in 1975. Other notable buildings of the Group Plan are the
Howard M. Metzenbaum U.S. Courthouse The Howard M. Metzenbaum U.S. Courthouse is a historic courthouse and post office building located on Superior Avenue in downtown Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Its west side faces Public Square and its north side faces The Mall. It was form ...
designed by Arnold Brunner, the
Cleveland Public Library Cleveland Public Library, located in Cleveland, Ohio, operates the Main Library on Superior Avenue in downtown Cleveland, 27 branches throughout the city, a mobile library, a Public Administration Library in City Hall, and the Ohio Library for th ...
, the Board of Education Building,
Cleveland City Hall Cleveland City Hall is the seat of government for the City of Cleveland, Ohio, and the home of Cleveland City Council and the office of the Mayor of Cleveland. It opened in 1916 and is located at 601 Lakeside Avenue in the Civic Center area of Dow ...
, and
Public Auditorium Public Auditorium (also known as Public Hall) is a multi-purpose performing arts, entertainment, sports, and exposition facility located in the civic center district of downtown Cleveland, Ohio. The 10,000-capacity main auditorium shares its stag ...
.


History

Cuyahoga County Cuyahoga County ( or ) is a large urban county located in the northeastern part of the U.S. state of Ohio. It is situated on the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S.-Canada maritime border. As of the 2020 census, its population was 1 ...
was established in 1807 with the county seat still in the air. The county decided to place the temporary county seat in the largest settlement of Cleveland. The courts met in various taverns and inns around town while waiting for the courthouse to be built. This first courthouse was designed and built by Levi Johnson. The building was completed in 1813 and was a simple
Federal style Federal-style architecture is the name for the classicizing architecture built in the newly founded United States between 1780 and 1830, and particularly from 1785 to 1815, which was heavily based on the works of Andrea Palladio with several inn ...
stone structure. The structure was five
bays A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a gulf, sea, sound, or bight. A cove is a small, circular bay with a na ...
wide and two
piles Hemorrhoids (or haemorrhoids), also known as piles, are vascular structures in the anal canal. In their normal state, they are cushions that help with stool control. They become a disease when swollen or inflamed; the unqualified term ''he ...
deep, with doors located in the center and to the right corner of the facade. A rectangular window was located between these doors with a smaller square window to the left of the central door. Five rectangular windows lit the second floor. The
pitched roof Roof pitch is the steepness of a roof expressed as a ratio of inch(es) rise per horizontal foot (or their metric equivalent), or as the angle in degrees its surface deviates from the horizontal. A flat roof has a pitch of zero in either inst ...
was framed by brick chimneys on either end. The clapboard siding was painted red with white trim boards. The county occupied this courthouse when the decision was made to make Cleveland the permanent county seat. The county soon erected a new courthouse in 1828. Henry Noble built the new courthouse of brick two stories tall. The front of the courthouse was framed by four colossal
Doric columns The Doric order was one of the three orders of ancient Greek and later Roman architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. The Doric is most easily recognized by the simple circular capitals at the top of col ...
supporting an
entablature An entablature (; nativization of Italian , from "in" and "table") is the superstructure of moldings and bands which lies horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and ...
. The interior was illuminated by large rectangular windows piercing the facade. The flat roof supported a
cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome. The word derives, via Italian, f ...
which located in the center of the building. The cupola rose on
Ionic columns The Ionic order is one of the three canonic orders of classical architecture, the other two being the Doric and the Corinthian. There are two lesser orders: the Tuscan (a plainer Doric), and the rich variant of Corinthian called the composite o ...
and supported a lantern capped by a weather vane. This courthouse remained in use until the 1850s. The growth of Cleveland, and consequently the legal business of Cuyahoga County, had for some time foreshadowed the necessity for increased courthouse facilities, and action was taken in the period now under consideration. It was decided to clear
Public Square A town square (or square, plaza, public square, city square, urban square, or ''piazza'') is an open public space, commonly found in the heart of a traditional town but not necessarily a true geometric square, used for community gatherings. ...
permanently of official buildings, and accordingly a new structure and a new site were agreed upon. This latter was situated just north of the northwest corner of Public Square, on the north side of Rockwell street. On November 10, 1857, the County Commissioners contracted with George P. Smith and James Pannell to erect a substantial stone edifice, three stories high, at a cost of $152,500. The new third courthouse was designed by J.J. Husband, an amateur designer, built in 1858. This new building, built of stone was designed in the
Italianate style The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style drew its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century Italian R ...
. The building has a square footprint with a central entrance. The entrance is contained a slightly projected bay with two windows on either side. The windows in the basement are small arched panels with the main floor windows slightly larger. The second floor windows are large arched windows separated by Corinthian
pilasters In classical architecture, a pilaster is an architectural element used to give the appearance of a supporting column and to articulate an extent of wall, with only an ornamental function. It consists of a flat surface raised from the main wal ...
. A decorative
frieze In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...
separated the second floor from the third floor and a pediment topping the center projection. A
mansard roof A mansard or mansard roof (also called a French roof or curb roof) is a four-sided gambrel-style hip roof characterised by two slopes on each of its sides, with the lower slope, punctured by dormer windows, at a steeper angle than the upper. Th ...
tops the building with
dormer A dormer is a roofed structure, often containing a window, that projects vertically beyond the plane of a pitched roof. A dormer window (also called ''dormer'') is a form of roof window. Dormers are commonly used to increase the usable spac ...
windows lining the facade. Four large chimneys framed the building on the sides. This building, eventually called "the old court-house," filled all the requirements of county business until 1875. Ground was then purchased on Seneca Street (West 3rd St.), running back to the county jail on Rockwell street, and a contract let for a new court-house, at a cost of $250,000. So, in 1875 a 4th courthouse was constructed. It was nearly square, running seventy feet in each direction with rooms for various officials and the courts in the Seneca (West 3rd St.) front of the building, with the jail in the rear. In 1884 the county was faced with a problem of room and space in the courtroom and the decision was made to expand the current building than to build a new one. Therefore, a still further increase of facilities was made in 1884, when two stories were added to the old building on public square, at a cost of nearly $100,000. The building transformed from a -story building to a 5-story building. The facade was changed as well with the central projection going from one arched window to three arched windows on the second and third floor and four arched windows on the fourth and fifth. To either side of the central projection is an arched window. A larger pediment tops the projection with
dentil A dentil (from Lat. ''dens'', a tooth) is a small block used as a repeating ornament in the bedmould of a cornice. Dentils are found in ancient Greek and Roman architecture, and also in later styles such as Neoclassical, Federal, Georgian R ...
moldings lining the overhangs. The hipped roof rose to support a small gabled tower with a decorative frieze. The chimneys on the sides were built up to rise over the roof and were each equipped with pipes that ventilated many fireplaces and heaters. File:Third cuyahoga courthouse.jpg, The fourth courthouse located on Seneca Street built in 1875 File:Third cuyahoga courthouse remodel.jpg, The third courthouse built between 1858 and 1860 on Public Square after the remodel of 1884. The county was in need once again of larger facilities for county operations and the design was awarded to Walter Blythe. The site that was chosen was along the Cleveland Mall and was designed in the style that matched many of the Beaux Arts style of the federal buildings sprouting along the
Washington D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, Na ...
Mall Mall commonly refers to a: * Shopping mall * Strip mall * Pedestrian street * Esplanade Mall or MALL may also refer to: Places Shopping complexes * The Mall (Sofia) (Tsarigradsko Mall), Sofia, Bulgaria * The Mall, Patna, Patna, Bihar, India ...
. It is one of several buildings built as part of the Cleveland
Group Plan A group is a number of persons or things that are located, gathered, or classed together. Groups of people * Cultural group, a group whose members share the same cultural identity * Ethnic group, a group whose members share the same ethnic iden ...
of 1903, an early
City Beautiful The City Beautiful Movement was a reform philosophy of North American architecture and urban planning that flourished during the 1890s and 1900s with the intent of introducing beautification and monumental grandeur in cities. It was a part of the ...
-era city plan designed by
Daniel Burnham Daniel Hudson Burnham (September 4, 1846 – June 1, 1912) was an American architect and urban designer. A proponent of the '' Beaux-Arts'' movement, he may have been, "the most successful power broker the American architectural profession has ...
, Arnold Brunner, and John Carrere. All previous courthouses have since been demolished.


Exterior

The building was constructed from 1906 to 1912 by the architectural firm of Lehman & Schmitt. The building is
Beaux Arts style Beaux-Arts architecture ( , ) was the academic architectural style taught at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, particularly from the 1830s to the end of the 19th century. It drew upon the principles of French neoclassicism, but also incorpora ...
and is constructed of Milford pink granite from
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. The rusticated masonry of the ground floor includes deeply recessed and arched windows and doors. A protruding keystone tops each one. The front entrance is flanked by bronze statues of
Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 18 ...
and
Alexander Hamilton Alexander Hamilton (January 11, 1755 or 1757July 12, 1804) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first United States secretary of the treasury from 1789 to 1795. Born out of wedlock in Charle ...
sculpted by
Karl Bitter Karl Theodore Francis Bitter (December 6, 1867 – April 9, 1915) was an Austrian-born American sculptor best known for his architectural sculpture, memorials and residential work. Life and career The son of Carl and Henrietta Bitter, he was ...
. Directly above the front entry doors are three large arched windows between fluted columns of the
Ionic order The Ionic order is one of the three canonic orders of classical architecture, the other two being the Doric and the Corinthian. There are two lesser orders: the Tuscan (a plainer Doric), and the rich variant of Corinthian called the composite ...
allowing daylight into the courtroom within. The
frieze In architecture, the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Paterae are also usually used to decorate friezes. Even when neither columns nor ...
of the
cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...
includes the inscription "Cuyahoga County Courthouse". Above the cornice are several stone statues of historical law givers. Two of these figures, of
Edward I Edward I (17/18 June 1239 – 7 July 1307), also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1272 to 1307. Concurrently, he ruled the duchies of Aquitaine and Gascony as a vas ...
and
John Hampden John Hampden (24 June 1643) was an English landowner and politician whose opposition to arbitrary taxes imposed by Charles I made him a national figure. An ally of Parliamentarian leader John Pym, and cousin to Oliver Cromwell, he was one of t ...
, were sculpted by
Daniel Chester French Daniel Chester French (April 20, 1850 – October 7, 1931) was an American sculptor of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, best known for his 1874 sculpture '' The Minute Man'' in Concord, Massachusetts, and his 1920 monum ...
. The rear elevation facing
Lake Erie Lake Erie ( "eerie") is the fourth largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also ha ...
is composed similarly, but with the inscription "Obedience to Law is Liberty". A
pediment Pediments are gables, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the lintel, or entablature, if supported by columns. Pediments can contain an overdoor and are usually topped by hood moulds. A pedim ...
with a plain tympanum surmounts the central element of the facade on both the north and south elevations. A statue of
Alfred the Great Alfred the Great (alt. Ælfred 848/849 – 26 October 899) was King of the West Saxons from 871 to 886, and King of the Anglo-Saxons from 886 until his death in 899. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf and his first wife Osburh, who bo ...
stands on the north side of the building."Alfred the Great", Isidore Konti 1910"
. Sculpture Center. Retrieved July 5, 2017 The interior contains murals by
Frank Brangwyn Sir Frank William Brangwyn (12 May 1867 – 11 June 1956) was a Welsh artist, painter, watercolourist, printmaker, illustrator, and designer. Brangwyn was an artistic jack-of-all-trades. As well as paintings and drawings, he produced des ...
,
Violet Oakley Violet Oakley (June 10, 1874 – February 25, 1961) was an American artist. She was the first American woman to receive a public mural commission. During the first quarter of the twentieth century, she was renowned as a pathbreaker in mural dec ...
,
Charles Yardley Turner Charles Yardley "C. Y." Turner (November 25, 1850 – January 1, 1919) was an American painter, illustrator, muralist and teacher. His genre scenes and American historical paintings were popularized through engravings and book illustrations. Bi ...
, Max Bohm and Frederick Wilson.


See also

*
Justice Center Complex The Justice Center Complex is a building complex located in the Civic Center District in Cleveland, Ohio, in the United States. The complex consists of the Cleveland Police Headquarters Building, the Cuyahoga County and Cleve ...
* Yule marble


References


External links


Images and architectural information


Further reading

*Thrane, Susan W., ''County Courthouses of Ohio'', Indiana University Press, Indianapolis, Indiana 2000 *Marzulli, Lawrence J., ''The Development of Ohio's Counties and Their Historic Courthouses'', Gray Printing Company, Fostoria, Ohio 1983 *Stebbins, Clair, ''Ohio's Court Houses'', Ohio State Bar Association, Columbus, Ohio 1980 {{authority control Buildings and structures in Cleveland Courthouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Ohio County courthouses in Ohio Beaux-Arts architecture in Ohio Historic district contributing properties in Ohio National Register of Historic Places in Cleveland, Ohio Sculptures by Daniel Chester French Downtown Cleveland