The Palo Alto County Courthouse is located in

Emmetsburg, Iowa Emmetsburg is a city in Palo Alto County, Iowa, United States. The population was 3,706 at the time of the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Palo Alto County. Emmetsburg is located around the southern bay of Five Island Lake. History The to ...

, United States. It is the second building the county has used for court functions and county administration.

History

The first

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 ...

was Paoli. The county judge contracted to have a courthouse and schoolhouse built there in 1859. Construction began, but by 1865 neither building had been completed. The county won a judgment against the contractor and the courthouse was completed in 1866 for $1,060. Emmetsburg became the county seat in 1875. The present courthouse was built there in 1880. It was designed by B.J. Bartlet and built by D.E. Burdick. At the time it was built it featured Victorian characteristics. The building was extensively remodeled from 1960 to 1961 and the

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome. The word derives, via Italian, from ...

and arches over the windows were removed, and the main entrance was changed. A

brick veneer Masonry veneer walls consist of a single non-structural external layer of masonry, typically made of brick, stone or manufactured stone. Masonry veneer can have an air space behind it and is technically called "anchored veneer". A masonry veneer ...

was also placed over the exterior. The building is capped with a

hipped roof A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope (although a tented roof by definition is a hipped roof with steeply pitched slopes rising to a peak). Thus, ...

References

Government buildings completed in 1880 County courthouses in Iowa Buildings and structures in Palo Alto County, Iowa Victorian architecture in Iowa 1880 establishments in Iowa {{Iowa-struct-stub