The Santiago E. Campos United States Courthouse is a historic

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 ...

building located at Santa Fe in

Santa Fe County, New Mexico Santa Fe County ( es, Condado de Santa Fe; meaning ''Holy faith'' in Spanish) is located in the U.S. state of New Mexico. As of the 2010 census, the population was 144,170, making it New Mexico's third-most populous county, after Bernalillo Cou ...

. Formerly designated simply as the United States Courthouse, it was renamed for the late District Judge Santiago E. Campos in 2004.To designate the United States courthouse at South Federal Place in Santa Fe, New Mexico, as the `Santiago E. Campos United States Courthouse,' S 2385 RFH, 108th Congress, 2d Session, in the House of Representatives, July 20, 2004.
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Building history

The building had its beginnings as the proposed territorial capitol for New Mexico. In 1848 under the

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ( es, Tratado de Guadalupe Hidalgo), officially the Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Limits, and Settlement between the United States of America and the United Mexican States, is the peace treaty that was signed on 2 ...

, Mexico ceded what is now New Mexico, Arizona, California, Texas, and portions of Colorado, Utah and Nevada, to the United States. The New Mexico territorial government was established two years later. In 1851 Congress appropriated $20,000 and in 1854 an additional $50,000 to construct a "state house" on what is now Federal Plaza. Plans for the building were prepared by the

Supervising Architect The Office of the Supervising Architect was an agency of the United States Treasury Department that designed federal government buildings from 1852 to 1939. The office handled some of the most important architectural commissions of the nineteenth ...

of the Treasury,

Ammi B. Young Ammi Burnham Young (June 19, 1798 – March 14, 1874) was a 19th-century American architect whose commissions transitioned from the Greek Revival to the Neo-Renaissance styles. His design of the second Vermont State House brought him fame and su ...

, perhaps based on sketches by Chief Justice

Joab Houghton Joab Houghton (1811 – January 31, 1876) was an American lawyer and judge who served as the first Chief Justice of New Mexico. A native of New York, Houghton came to New Mexico when it was still a History of New Mexico#Mexican territory, Mexican ...

, a member of the U.S. Territorial Supreme Court for New Mexico. Construction began in 1853, with the walls rising one-and-one-half stories above the basement by the following year. Construction continued intermittently due to limited funding, lack of competent workmen, and difficulties imposed by the Civil War. As the years wore on, the half-built structure was essentially abandoned. In 1883 the building grounds were chosen as the site for Santa Fe's "Tertio-Millennial" celebration, and the building shell received a temporary roof. The grounds were cleared and an oval racetrack, about 1/3 mile long, was set up surrounding the site. Indian participants were housed in the first floor during the celebration. The "state house" was finally finished in 1889, although it was never used for this purpose. Instead, at its completion, it was occupied by a land claims court and has housed various federal courts since that time. The territorial capitol building was constructed on another site in Santa Fe between 1895 and 1900. New Mexico became a state in 1912. As the needs of the courts exceeded the building's capacity, an addition was planned that echoed the original Greek Revival style. This addition was built in 1929-1930 under the direction of Louis A. Simon, Superintendent of the Architectural Section of the Treasury Department. It more than doubled the overall size of the courthouse. The U.S. Courthouse 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 1973.

Architecture

file:bucranium.jpgalt=a garlanded cow skull carved of stone is positioned above a carved stone shieldthumba bucranium at the top of the south wall The courthouse is located adjacent to the Santa Fe Post Office in Federal Plaza. The plaza is enclosed by a stone wall with metal pipe railings that follows the outline of the 1883 racetrack. 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 ...

courthouse building, originally intended to be the capitol, was constructed in two stages; the first in 1853-1854 and the second in 1888-1889. The Greek Revival style of the original design with prominent pediment and porticos is characteristic of the work of

of the Treasury Department. However, other elements of the design including the roof and second-story window treatments have a character more reminiscent of the Renaissance Revival architectural style of the late 1880s. To the north of the original building is a 1929-30 addition. Both buildings are rectangular, and are oriented parallel to each other, with the addition being slightly smaller than the original building. A two-story vestibule, built at the same time as the addition, connects the buildings at their midpoints. A semicircular projecting bay on the vestibule's east elevation encloses an elegant, interlocking cantilevered stairway. The courthouse walls are of rough stone quarried in the Hyde Park area of the

Sangre de Cristo Mountains ) , country= United States , subdivision1_type= States , subdivision1= , parent= Rocky Mountains , geology= , orogeny= , area_mi2= 17193 , range_coordinates= , length_mi= 242 , length_orientation= north-south , width_mi= 120 , w ...

, while details such as quoins and lintels are of dressed stone from the hills of Cerrillos, a small town about eighteen miles southwest of Santa Fe. Both buildings are two stories tall and have the same symmetrical layout. The north and south elevations of both structures are articulated by nine bays, while the shorter east and west elevations are three bays wide. The south elevation of the original building recalls the Greek Revival style, as interpreted in the 1880s. The classical entrance with fluted

Doric order The Doric order was one of the three orders of ancient Greek and later Roman architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. The Doric is most easily recognized by the simple circular capitals at the top of col ...

pilasters and elaborate entablature replaced the original in 1929-1930. The arched windows above have ornamental stone trim. A broad pediment surmounts the center section of the elevation. Porticos with Ionic columns mark the east and west entrances, though only the one over the west entrance is original. (The east portico was constructed with the 1929-1930 addition). The windows of the first floor are of simple rectangular design; in the unfinished 1853-1854 structure, these window openings had segmental arches. The second-story windows are arched with elegant cut-stone moldings in the original building and rubble stone detailing in the addition. A copper-clad bracketed cornice supports the low-pitched, hipped copper roof. In an 1884 ceremony attended by about 5,000 people, a sandstone obelisk erected by the Grand Army of the Republic was unveiled at the main entrance of the building. The monument honored

Christopher "Kit" Carson Christopher Houston Carson (December 24, 1809 – May 23, 1868) was an American frontiersman. He was a fur trapper, wilderness guide, Indian agent, and U.S. Army officer. He became a frontier legend in his own lifetime by biographies and n ...

(1809–1868), a veteran of the

Mexican–American War The Mexican–American War, also known in the United States as the Mexican War and in Mexico as the (''United States intervention in Mexico''), was an armed conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848. It followed the 1 ...

and the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

. Six murals of landscapes are placed on the walls near the north and south entrances of the original building. Commissioned as a WPA project, they were completed in 1938 by noted Santa Fe painter and designer William Penhallow Henderson, who is credited as a co-founder of the Santa Fe Art Colony and with popularizing the Pueblo Revival style of architecture. A major restoration project undertaken by the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) was completed in 2002. The roof and limestone decorative elements were cleaned and repaired. The large bronze doors at the main entrance, which had become blackened over the years, were thoroughly cleaned and polished, returning them to their former brilliance. Differential settlement of the sandstone exterior walls over many years had caused roof framing above Judge Campos' courtroom and offices to pull loose where attached to supporting walls. New steel framing within the attic space, hidden from view, was installed during this restoration to prevent eventual collapse of the roof that otherwise would eventually occur had the timber framing continued to pull apart. Repairs were made to the Kit Carson memorial to correct cracking in the sandstone. GSA was recognized for its stewardship of the U.S. Courthouse with a State of New Mexico Heritage Preservation Award in May, 2000. The completed project was recognized with a 2002 "Muchas Gracias" historic preservation award from the City of Santa Fe.

Significant events

*1853: Construction begins on the building. *1883: The building grounds are selected as the site for New Mexico's "Tertio-Millennial" celebration. *1884: A sandstone obelisk is erected as a memorial to Kit Carson, legendary soldier in the Grand Army of the Republic. *1889: Construction is completed. *1929-1930: An addition is constructed to the north of the original building. *1938: Six murals by William Penhallow Henderson, commissioned by the

Public Works of Art Project The Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) was a New Deal program designed to employ artists that operated from 1933 to 1934. The program was headed by Edward Bruce, under the United States Treasury Department with funding from the Civil Works Admin ...

and completed through the

Treasury Relief Art Project The Treasury Relief Art Project (TRAP) was a New Deal arts program that commissioned visual artists to provide artistic decoration for existing Federal buildings during the Great Depression in the United States. A project of the United States De ...

, are installed near the north and south entrances. *1973: The building is listed in the

. *2002: Restoration work on the courthouse exterior and Kit Carson Memorial obelisk is completed.

Building facts

*Architect: Ammi B. Young, Supervising Architect of the Treasury; Louis A. Simon, Superintendent of the Architectural Section of the Treasury Department *Construction Dates: 1853-1889; two-story addition and connecting vestibule, 1929–1930 *Landmark Status: Listed in the

*Location: East end of Federal Place *Architectural Style: Greek Revival *Primary Materials: Rubble stone and variegated limestone *Prominent Features: Cantilevered marble stairway; Kit Carson Memorial obelisk; WPA Murals

References

Attribution