The Old St. Louis County Courthouse was built as a combination federal and state

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 ...

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

. Missouri's tallest habitable building from 1864 to 1894, it is now part of

Gateway Arch National Park Gateway Arch National Park is an American national park located in St. Louis, Missouri, near the starting point of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The memorial was established to commemorate: *the Louisiana Purchase and subsequent westward mov ...

and operated by the National Park Service for historical exhibits and events.

History

Land for the courthouse was donated in 1816 by Judge John Baptiste Charles Lucas and St. Louis founder

Auguste Chouteau René-Auguste Chouteau, Jr. (September 7, 1749, or September 26, 1750 – February 24, 1829Beckwith, 8.), also known as Auguste Chouteau, was the founder of St. Louis, Missouri, a successful fur trader and a politician. He and his partner had a ...

. Lucas and Chouteau required the land be "used forever as the site on which the courthouse of the County of St. Louis should be erected." The

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 ...

courthouse was completed in 1828. St louis courthouse rotunda

It was designed by the firm of Laveille & Morton, which also designed the early buildings at

Jefferson Barracks The Jefferson Barracks Military Post is located on the Mississippi River at Lemay, Missouri, south of St. Louis. It was an important and active U.S. Army installation from 1826 through 1946. It is the oldest operating U.S. military installation ...

as well as the Old Cathedral. Laveille & Morton was the first architecture firm west of the Mississippi River above New Orleans. As street commissioner in 1823–26, Joseph C. Laveille devised the city's street name grid, with ordinal numbers for north–south streets and arboreal names for east–west streets. Missouri became a state in 1821, and the St. Louis population tripled in 10 years. A new courthouse was soon needed. In 1839, ground was broken on a courthouse designed by Henry Singleton 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 a ...

style, with four wings, including an east wing that comprised the original courthouse and a three-story cupola dome at the center. In 1851, Robert S. Mitchell began a redesign of the courthouse in which the east wing was torn down and replaced. From 1855 to 1858, the west wing was remodeled. The famous Dred Scott citizenship case was heard in the west wing before the remodeling. Courthouse Dome, St

In 1861, William Rumbold replaced the cupola with an Italian Renaissance

cast iron Cast iron is a class of iron–carbon alloys with a carbon content more than 2%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloy constituents affect its color when fractured: white cast iron has carbide impuriti ...

dome modeled on

St. Peter's Basilica The Papal Basilica of Saint Peter in the Vatican ( it, Basilica Papale di San Pietro in Vaticano), or simply Saint Peter's Basilica ( la, Basilica Sancti Petri), is a church built in the Renaissance style located in Vatican City, the papal en ...

in Vatican City. The

United States Capitol The United States Capitol, often called The Capitol or the Capitol Building, is the seat of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, which is formally known as the United States Congress. It is located on Capitol Hill at ...

dome, built at the same time during the American Civil War, is also modeled on the basilica. The St. Louis dome was completed in 1864, and Karl Ferdinand Wimar was commissioned to paint murals, which are featured in the rotunda."Old Courthouse"
National Park Service The last slave auction held at the Old Courthouse took place in 1861. Slave auctions were held in the Probate Courts of the Old Courthouse near the East Door. The Court ordered sales of slaves whose owners had died without a will or had declared bankruptcy. This was common practice in all Missouri courthouses. Rumbold's dome in the courthouse is wrought and

with a copper exterior. Four lunettes in the dome have paintings by Carl Wimar, depicting four events in St. Louis history. Ettore Miragoli painted over them in 1880, but they were restored in 1888. Louis Brandeis was admitted to the bar in the Old Courthouse, in 1878. When

St. Louis County, Missouri St. Louis County is located in the eastern-central portion of Missouri. It is bounded by the City of St. Louis and the Mississippi River to the east, the Missouri River to the north, and the Meramec River to the south. At the 2020 census, t ...

and the city split in 1877, the courthouse became city property. The courthouse was abandoned by the city in 1930 after it built the

Civil Courts Building The Civil Courts Building is a landmark court building used by the 22nd Judicial Circuit Court of Missouri in St. Louis, Missouri. The building with its pyramid shaped roof is prominently featured in the center of photos of the Gateway Arch from ...

, and descendants of Chouteau and Lucas sued to regain ownership. In 1935, during the Great Depression, St. Louis voted for a bond issue to raze nearly 40 blocks around the courthouse in the center of St. Louis for the new Gateway Arch National Park, which was then known as Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. President Franklin Roosevelt declared in an Executive Order the area would be a

national monument A national monument is a monument constructed in order to commemorate something of importance to national heritage, such as a country's founding, independence, war, or the life and death of a historical figure. The term may also refer to a spec ...

and landscape design, sidewalks and other infrastructure was added. The courthouse formally became part of the new monument area in 1940. Replaced in 1941, the roof was renovated in 1955, 1985 and 2010. The National Park Service maintains four history galleries on St. Louis and NPS offices within. The courthouse once had up to 12 courtrooms, but now there are two in period presentation. The east wing has Circuit Court #13 restored to its 1910 appearance, while the west wing has Circuit Court #4 restored to an approximate 1850s detail. The courthouse building was the tallest building in Missouri and St. Louis until 1896 when Union Station was built. It remained the largest structure in the national monument until the

Gateway Arch The Gateway Arch is a monument in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Clad in stainless steel and built in the form of a weighted catenary arch, it is the world's tallest arch and Missouri's tallest accessible building. Some sources conside ...

was built in 1965.

Notable cases

*In 1846 the slave Dred Scott sued for his and his wife's freedom as they had been held as slaves in free states. All of the trials, including a Missouri Supreme Court hearing, were held in the Old Courthouse. The case was ultimately decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1857 ''

Dred Scott v. Sandford ''Dred Scott v. Sandford'', 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1857), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that held the U.S. Constitution did not extend American citizenship to people of black African descent, enslaved or free; th ...

'', which ruled against the Scotts, saying they did not have grounds as citizens to sue. *In 1872 Virginia Minor attempted to vote in a St. Louis election and was arrested. Her trials, including the deliberations before the

Missouri Supreme Court The Supreme Court of Missouri is the highest court in the state of Missouri. It was established in 1820 and is located at 207 West High Street in Jefferson City, Missouri. Missouri voters have approved changes in the state's constitution to ...

, were held in this building. The United States Supreme Court in ''

Minor v. Happersett ''Minor v. Happersett'', 88 U.S. (21 Wall.) 162 (1875), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that, while women are no less citizens than men are, citizenship does not confer a right to vote, and therefore state laws barri ...

'' (1875) upheld the male-only voting rules, as the Constitution did not address voting rules, which were set by the states.

In popular culture

*In Season 3 of the TV series '' The Last Ship'', the Old Courthouse becomes the new White House and the base of operations for the reformed

United States government The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a feder ...

in the post-plague days of the Red Flu. *The courthouse is destroyed in the

disaster films A disaster film or disaster movie is a film genre that has an impending or ongoing disaster as its subject and primary plot device. Such disasters may include natural disasters, accidents, military/terrorist attacks or global catastrophes such as ...

'' Supernova'' and ''

The Black Hole ''The Black Hole'' is a 1979 American science fiction film directed by Gary Nelson and produced by Walt Disney Productions. The film stars Maximilian Schell, Robert Forster, Joseph Bottoms, Yvette Mimieux, Anthony Perkins and Ernest Borgn ...

''. *The Old Courthouse is featured on many of Saint Louis's Architectural tours.

Gallery

Image:The Old Courthouse, Saint Louis, Missouri.JPG Image:Oldcourthouse ballpark.jpg, Seen from

Busch Stadium Busch Stadium (also referred to informally as "New Busch Stadium" or "Busch Stadium III") is a baseball stadium located in St. Louis, Missouri. The stadium serves as the home of the St. Louis Cardinals, the city's Major League Baseball (MLB) f ...

File:Old Courthouse St. Louis, Missouri.jpg, Seen from the top of the Gateway Arch File:StLouisArchMultExpCDR.jpg, File:Old St. Louis Courthouse A.JPG, File:Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, Angled.jpg, park entrance sign

References

External links