The Sheboygan County Courthouse is a six-story

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 ...

for Sheboygan County, Wisconsin, located in central Sheboygan, Wisconsin. The cornerstone was laid in 1933 on the site of the previous 1868 building which was razed during the construction of the new courthouse (the former clock tower's face and clockworks would be later rebuilt into a new tower as part of the new Sheridan Elementary School in the late 70s). It was completed in 1934 as a Works Progress Administration project, having provided 200 local workers with jobs in the midst of the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

. The building received a four-story rear annex in 1956 and interior renovations in 1968. At that time, the building included county offices, a jail, and several court rooms, along with a board room on the fifth floor. The jail (which took up the topmost sixth floor) eventually moved to a new building next door in the early 80s with the Sheboygan County Sheriff's Department, before itself being split in a men's jail on the south side of Sheboygan in the mid 90s, with the women's jail and juvenile hall remaining in the 80s facility. Several county offices moved to a new administration building in the late 90s across the street, northeast of the courthouse. The combined 911 dispatch facility for Sheboygan county and the city of Sheboygan is within the 80s facility. The city of Sheboygan has utilized the fifth floor boardroom on multiple occasions as a temporary chambers for the Common Council, especially when City Hall has undergone renovations disallowing use of the regular chamber. The courthouse was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982, in part as a representative of the then modern design of a 20th-century government building, breaking with tradition-laden courthouses of the past. In the summer of 2018, the building received a renovation which reconstructed the front entrance to meet ADA and post-9/11 security guidelines, along with a front drive. The newly-renovated front entrance is secured with metal and x-ray detectors, and now the only public means of entrance into the building.

References

External links

Sheboygan County, Wisconsin websiteCourthouse History-Images for Sheboygan County, Wisconsin
Buildings and structures in Sheboygan, Wisconsin Courthouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Wisconsin County courthouses in Wisconsin National Register of Historic Places in Sheboygan County, Wisconsin {{Wisconsin-NRHP-stub