The Old Greene 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 Eutaw,

Alabama (We dare defend our rights) , anthem = "Alabama (state song), Alabama" , image_map = Alabama in United States.svg , seat = Montgomery, Alabama, Montgomery , LargestCity = Huntsville, Alabama, Huntsville , LargestCounty = Baldwin County, Al ...

, United States. It housed the seat of government for Greene County from 1869 until 1993. The building is a two-story masonry structure in the

Greek Revival The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but ...

style with

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 ...

influences. Architect

Clay Lancaster Clay Lancaster (30 March 1917 – 25 December 2000), was an authority on American architecture, an orientalist, and an influential advocate of historical preservation. According to ''The New York Times'', Lancaster's 1961 study of the architectu ...

proposed that it may be the last Greek Revival public building to be built in Alabama. It replaced an earlier wooden courthouse on the same site that was built in 1838. The prior courthouse was burned in 1868, in what is considered by most historians to have been a deliberate act of arson that was executed to destroy indictments brought by the recently installed

Radical Reconstruction The Reconstruction era was a period in American history following the American Civil War (1861–1865) and lasting until approximately the Compromise of 1877. During Reconstruction, attempts were made to rebuild the country after the bloo ...

government against local citizens. The fire destroyed paperwork pertaining to some 1,800 suits by freedmen against planters which were about to be acted on. The courthouse was placed on 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 March 24, 1971, due to its architectural significance.

References

External links

* * National Register of Historic Places in Greene County, Alabama Government buildings completed in 1869 County courthouses in Alabama Italianate architecture in Alabama Greek Revival architecture in Alabama Courthouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Alabama Historic American Buildings Survey in Alabama 1869 establishments in Alabama {{Alabama-NRHP-stub