The Sherman County Courthouse, at 630 O St. in

Loup City, Nebraska Loup City is the county seat of Sherman County, in the central portion of the Midwestern state of Nebraska, United States. The population was 1,173 at the 2010 census. Loup City is close to the Middle Loup River, and about five miles from Sherm ...

, is a historic Beaux Arts-style

county 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 ...

that was built in 1920. Serving Sherman County still, it is a building, topped by a

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...

, and above that,

mutules This page is a glossary of architecture. A B C The Caryatid Porch of the Erech ...

and a

parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an extension of the wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/breast'). Whe ...

. It was listed 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 ...

in 1990. It was deemed important as a good example of a "County Citadel"-type courthouse. and

History

The first Sherman County Courthouse, financed by $5,000 in bonds, was built in 1874, the year after the county was created. However, the courthouse burned down on the day of its dedication. A second courthouse was made of

brick A brick is a type of block used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a block composed of dried clay, but is now also used informally to denote other chemically cured cons ...

and was built in 1878, using some of the surviving wall of the first building. The

Burlington and Missouri River Railroad The Burlington and Missouri River Railroad (B&MR) or sometimes (B&M) was an American railroad company incorporated in Iowa in 1852, with headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska. It was developed to build a railroad across the state of Iowa and began oper ...

donated $1,200 to the county for the construction of this second courthouse. The third and current Sherman County Courthouse opened in 1921. It is tan brick with

terra cotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracotta ...

trim and was financed by a special tax levy which began in 1916 and raised $102,640 by the time building's completion. The courthouse was designed by Henningson Engineering Co., and built by John Ohlsen and Sons, who also owned a

brickyard A brickyard or brickfield is a place or yard where bricks are made, fired, and stored, or sometimes sold or otherwise distributed from. Brick makers work in a brick yard. A brick yard may be constructed near natural sources of clay or on o ...

. The courthouse square was the scene of a riot on June 14, 1934 (the " Flag Day Riot"), and a subsequent trial. The riot marked the end of the Farm Holiday Movement in Nebraska. The Farm Holiday Movement was an agrarian farmer's movement in reaction to poor agricultural conditions in the 1930s. In the riot, the well-known national labor figure Ella Reeve "Mother" Bloor and other activists, including Communists, were arrested. Bloor recounted the affair in her 1940 autobiography, ''We Are Many'', and "the arrests, trial, and subsequent appeals were reported nationally.""," p. 6.

References

External links

* More photos of the Sherman County Courthouse at

Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons (or simply Commons) is a media repository of free-to-use images, sounds, videos and other media. It is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation. Files from Wikimedia Commons can be used across all of the Wikimedia projects in ...

* Courthouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Nebraska Beaux-Arts architecture in Nebraska Government buildings completed in 1920 County courthouses in Nebraska Buildings and structures in Sherman County, Nebraska National Register of Historic Places in Sherman County, Nebraska {{Nebraska-NRHP-stub