The Montgomery County Courthouse, located in Courthouse Square in Hillsboro, is the

county 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 ...

serving Montgomery 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 ...

. While the courthouse was originally built in 1833–35, it did not attain its current form until an extensive remodeling in 1868–71. Architect

Gurdon P. Randall Gurdon P. Randall (February 18, 1821– September 20, 18841884) was an architect in Chicago, Illinois. Early in his career, he studied in Boston, Massachusetts, in the office of Asher Benjamin. He moved to Chicago when he was 30, and practiced th ...

designed the remodeled courthouse in the

Second Empire Second Empire may refer to: * Second British Empire, used by some historians to describe the British Empire after 1783 * Second Bulgarian Empire (1185–1396) * Second French Empire (1852–1870) ** Second Empire architecture, an architectural styl ...

style. The courthouse's design features two towers: a square tower enclosing a staircase at the southwest corner, and a tower with 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. The ...

at the southeast corner. The courthouse's

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 ...

, which runs along the roof line and the bottom of the mansard roof, features decorative

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 ...

s. Since the renovated courthouse reopened, it has continuously served as the seat of county government functions. 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 October 28, 1994.

References

Courthouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Illinois Second Empire architecture in Illinois Buildings and structures in Montgomery County, Illinois County courthouses in Illinois Government buildings completed in 1871 National Register of Historic Places in Montgomery County, Illinois {{MontgomeryCountyIL-NRHP-stub