The Pike County Courthouse is a government building in

Pittsfield Pittsfield is the largest city and the county seat of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is the principal city of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses all of Berkshire County. Pittsfield� ...

, 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 ...

of Pike 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 ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. Completed in 1895, it is the fifth

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 the county's history.

Foundation

Pike County's first settler was Ebenezer Franklin, who built a cabin in early 1820 near the future location of

Atlas An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of maps of Earth or of a region of Earth. Atlases have traditionally been bound into book form, but today many atlases are in multimedia formats. In addition to presenting geographic ...

.''History of Pike County Illinois''.

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

: Chapman, 1880. Other settlers followed him to the vicinity; as late as 1829, Atlas was the only properly

plat In the United States, a plat ( or ) (plan) is a cadastral map, drawn to scale, showing the divisions of a piece of land. United States General Land Office surveyors drafted township plats of Public Lands Surveys to show the distance and bear ...

ted town in Pike County. Rapid growth in the Military Tract prompted the legislature to create Pike County in 1821, with the first seat being the settlement of Coles Grove in what has since become

Calhoun County Calhoun County is the name of several counties in the United States of America named after U.S. Vice President John C. Calhoun: * Calhoun County, Alabama * Calhoun County, Arkansas * Calhoun County, Florida * Calhoun County, Georgia * Calhoun Count ...

Previous courthouses

Pike County Courthouse 1821, square crop

The first Pike County Courthouse was completed in mid-1821; it was a log building, , and the county paid $32 to Daniel Shinn for the project. Despite this expense, officials soon sought to leave; a commission chose Atlas to be the permanent county seat in early 1823, although the official move was delayed until 1824 by a lawsuit. A new courthouse was built at Atlas by year's end, although the courts had been meeting there since the previous year. This being a temporary log building, county officials soon outgrew it, and a better structure was ordered in 1826 at a cost of nearly $1,500. However, the commissioners' plans were too grand; this building was never constructed, and county offices began operating out of rented quarters. The commissioners' second attempt at a courthouse was more successful; it was ordered in early 1829, and by September the county had paid approximately $1,800 for its new building, and two stories tall. Despite the expense of this building, county residents living far from Atlas sought to have the seat relocated, and in 1833 it was moved to a new location to be named "

". The first courthouse there was a wooden building ordered in 1833 and erected near the public square, but as early as 1836 county officials ordered yet another new building. When it was completed in 1839, the county had spent $15,000 building one of the region's grandest courthouses, and the old courthouse was relegated to commercial purposes.

Current courthouse

Pike County's current courthouse was constructed in 1894 and 1895. Its architect, Henry Elliott, was also responsible for designing the

Edgar County Courthouse The Edgar County Courthouse, located in Paris, Illinois, is the county courthouse of Edgar County. The courthouse was constructed from 1891 until 1893; it is the third building to be used as Edgar County's courthouse. Architect Henry Elliot desig ...

, which features a very similar design.Wagner, Robert. ''National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: Pittsfield Historic District''.

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propertie ...

, 1978-04-27. The building's exterior features twenty-four sides; its plan is basically that of an octagon with recesses in the middle of each of the four long sides. Built of rusticated stone, the courthouse is two and a half

stories Story or stories may refer to: Common uses * Story, a narrative (an account of imaginary or real people and events) ** Short story, a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting * Story (American English), or storey (British ...

tall with

belt course A belt course, also called a string course or sill course, is a continuous row or layer of stones or brick set in a wall. Set in line with window sills, it helps to make the horizontal line of the sills visually more prominent. Set between the f ...

s separating the stories. Rectangular windows are placed in each of the sides, grouped in clusters of three or five except on the shortest walls, while small ogive windows placed above many of the rectangular windows give the appearance of the

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

style. Atop the center sits a tower. The interior is built around a large

lightwell In architecture, a lightwell,light well, light-well sky-well,skywell, sky well or air shaft is an unroofed or roofed external space provided within the volume of a large building to allow light and air to reach what would otherwise be a dark or ...

.Weiser, Dennis. ''Illinois courthouses: an illustrated history''.

Virginia Beach Virginia Beach is an independent city located on the southeastern coast of the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. The population was 459,470 at the 2020 census. Although mostly suburban in character, it is the most populous city ...

: Donning, 2009, 121. Comparatively little change has occurred in the courthouse square since the First World War, and the courthouse continues to dominate the downtown. It is one of the key buildings included within the

Pittsfield Historic District Pittsfield Historic District is a historic district in Pittsfield, Illinois, the county seat of Pike County. The district is centered on the Pike County Courthouse and the surrounding courthouse square; it also encompasses nearby residential ar ...

, which 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 ...

in 1980.

References

External links

Pike County
{{Illinois county courthouses Government buildings completed in 1894 Buildings and structures in Pike County, Illinois County courthouses in Illinois Gothic Revival architecture in Illinois Stone buildings in the United States Tourist attractions in Pike County, Illinois U.S. Route 54