The fourth Franklin County Courthouse was a government building in central Benton, 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 Franklin County,

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 ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. Built in 1874 to replace an older structure that could no longer serve the county's needs, it was the fourth building to serve as a courthouse for Franklin County. Demolition of the building started on Aug. 5, 2020, and was completed within the month. A new courthouse, inaugurated on April 22, 2022, was built on the same location as the fourth Franklin County Courthouse.

Early history

Franklin County was settled slowly. Few

squatters Squatting is the action of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied area of land or a building, usually residential, that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have lawful permission to use. The United Nations estimated in 2003 that there ...

occupied public lands before the

land office The General Land Office (GLO) was an independent agency of the United States government responsible for public domain lands in the United States. It was created in 1812 to take over functions previously conducted by the United States Department o ...

Shawneetown Shawneetown is a city in Gallatin County, Illinois, United States. The population was 1,239 at the 2010 census, down from 1,410 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Gallatin County. Geography Shawneetown is located southeast of the cent ...

opened in 1814, and as late as 1850, half of the public land remained in federal ownership; only after the

Bit Act The bit is the most basic unit of information in computing and digital communications. The name is a portmanteau of binary digit. The bit represents a logical state with one of two possible values. These values are most commonly represented a ...

of 1854, which cut prices by 90%, did private men purchase most of the remaining lands.''History of Gallatin, Saline, Hamilton, Franklin, and Williamson counties, Illinois: from the earliest time to the present, together with sundry and interesting biographical sketches, notes, reminiscences, etc., etc.''

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: Goodspeed, 1887. The county was organized in 1818 from parts of Gallatin,

Jackson Jackson may refer to: People and fictional characters * Jackson (name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the surname or given name Places Australia * Jackson, Queensland, a town in the Maranoa Region * Jackson North, Qu ...

, and

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...

counties, with the location of the county seat to be determined by a commission of three. The commission chose the house of one Moses Garrett to serve as the temporary seat of government; it remained in use until a small courthouse and jail were built at Frankfort in 1826. However, the separation of southern Franklin County in 1839 to form Williamson County left the formerly central Frankfort far south of most of the rest of the county; the remnant residents obtained legislative consent to move the seat to a more convenient location, and the new town of Benton was

plat In the United States, a plat ( or ) (plan) is a cadastral map, drawn to scale, showing the divisions of a piece of land. United States General Land Office surveyors drafted township plats of Public Lands Surveys to show the distance and bear ...

ted in a field in January 1841.Weiser, Dennis. ''Illinois courthouses: an illustrated history''.

Virginia Beach Virginia Beach is an independent city located on the southeastern coast of the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. The population was 459,470 at the 2020 census. Although mostly suburban in character, it is the most populous city ...

: Donning, 2009, 131. A temporary

frame A frame is often a structural system that supports other components of a physical construction and/or steel frame that limits the construction's extent. Frame and FRAME may also refer to: Physical objects In building construction *Framing (con ...

courthouse was erected within a few months, but it was soon sold for relocation and conversion into a residence, and a new brick courthouse opened in 1845.

Fourth courthouse

As the county developed, this third courthouse began to prove insufficient, and the commissioners' court planned for its replacement in 1870. Poor harvests (and thus unexpectedly low tax revenues) forced the project's postponement, and only in 1874 could local contractor John J. St. Clair erect the current courthouse. He was paid $24,000 to build the new structure, into which he incorporated many bricks from the previous courthouse. A two-

story Story or stories may refer to: Common uses * Story, a narrative (an account of imaginary or real people and events) ** Short story, a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting * Story (American English), or storey (British ...

building, it originally was divided into offices on the first floor and into a courtroom and jury rooms on the second. All early county records having been destroyed by an 1845 fire in the county clerk's office, St. Clair included fireproof vaults for records storage in his new design. Prominent architectural features of the

Italianate 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 ...

courthouse include a

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supported by

bracket A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. Typically deployed in symmetric pairs, an individual bracket may be identified as a 'left' or 'r ...

under the

eaves The eaves are the edges of the roof which overhang the face of a wall and, normally, project beyond the side of a building. The eaves form an overhang to throw water clear of the walls and may be highly decorated as part of an architectural styl ...

, large stone

quoin Quoins ( or ) are masonry blocks at the corner of a wall. Some are structural, providing strength for a wall made with inferior stone or rubble, while others merely add aesthetic detail to a corner. According to one 19th century encyclopedia, t ...

s on the corners of the brick walls, and pairs of narrow arch windows on the second floor. The original plan was functionally a square with projections at the center of each side, leaving an "L"-shaped area of open land at each corner, but these corners were filled in with plain single-story sections after 1900.

References

{{coord, 37, 59, 48.5, N, 88, 55, 14, W, display=title Government buildings completed in 1874 Brick buildings and structures Buildings and structures in Franklin County, Illinois County courthouses in Illinois Italianate architecture in Illinois

Early history

Fourth courthouse

See also

References