The 1840 Franklin County Courthouse was the first permanent courthouse of

Franklin County, Ohio Franklin County is a county in the U.S. state of Ohio. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,323,807, making it the most populous county in Ohio. Most of its land area is taken up by its county seat, Columbus, the state capital and most ...

in the United States. The building, located in 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 ...

Columbus Columbus is a Latinized version of the Italian surname "''Colombo''". It most commonly refers to: * Christopher Columbus (1451-1506), the Italian explorer * Columbus, Ohio, capital of the U.S. state of Ohio Columbus may also refer to: Places ...

, stood from 1840 to 1884. The building was replaced with another county courthouse in 1887, and after its demise, that courthouse was replaced with

Dorrian Commons Park Dorrian Commons Park was a park and part of the Franklin County Government Center in downtown Columbus, Ohio, United States. The park opened in 1976 on the site of the Franklin County Courthouse (1840-1884), first and Franklin County Courthouse (1 ...

, open from 1976 to 2018; the courthouse moved to a new building nearby. The site is now planned to host the Franklin County Municipal Court.

Attributes

The building was a two-story stone structure. It had a tall

Ionic column 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 or ...

portico A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cult ...

, a centered dome, and two wings with columns ''in antis''.

History

Prior spaces

First State Buildings at Columbus illustration

The first spaces for the court was in rented rooms, and the first county building was a log jail ordered built in 1804; it is not known whether the building housed records. The first courthouse was built 1807-08 in Franklinton, its awarded builder was

Lucas Sullivant Lucas Sullivant (September 22, 1765 – August 28, 1823), was the founder of Franklinton, Columbus, Ohio, Franklinton, Ohio, the first American settlement near the Scioto River in central Ohio. Biography Lucas Sullivant was of Irish descent ...

, also first clerk of the court and founder of Franklinton, then the county seat. After the county government moved to Columbus in 1824, the court moved to the U.S. District Court Building on the northwest corner of

Capitol Square Capitol Square is a public square in Downtown Columbus, Ohio. The square includes the Ohio Statehouse, its Capitol Grounds, as well as the buildings and features surrounding the square. The Capitol Grounds are surrounded on the north and west ...

. In 1828 or 1829, after the space was found inadequate, an office building was built at the rear of the court building; these buildings held the county court until 1840.

1840 courthouse

With the growth of Columbus and settlement of its adjacent areas, county business increased, prompting discussion of a permanent courthouse. In 1837, a site was donated to the county at Mound and

High Street High Street is a common street name for the primary business street of a city, town, or village, especially in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth. It implies that it is the focal point for business, especially shopping. It is also a metonym fo ...

s, so long as a courthouse was built there. The first permanent courthouse was then built, and completed in 1840. The two-story brick and stone building cost $41,000. An annex was built to its south in 1853. A jail was added to the complex in 1865, along with other expansions around the same time. A fire destroyed many records in this courthouse in 1879, prompting discussion of a new courthouse building. In 1882, a ''Columbus Dispatch'' editorial urged construction of a new courthouse, detailing that the then-current structures were "inadequate in every way". The writer found the buildings to be small, impossible to clean, and with bad ventilation, among other issues. The 1887 Franklin County Courthouse was built on its site from 1884 to 1887. A stone fountain, once outside the courthouse at High and Mound streets, was moved to Livingston Avenue and Fifth Street after demolition of the 1840 structure.

References

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