The Woodson County Courthouse, located in Courthouse Square in Yates Center, is the seat of government of Woodson County,

Kansas Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the ...

. Woodson County was created by the territorial legislature in 1857. Neosho Falls was selected as the first county seat. Between 1865 and 1875, the county seat moved several times, alternating between Neosho Falls and Kalida, then to Defiance, and finally, in 1876, to the newly laid out Yates Center in the center of the county. Built from 1899 to 1900, the courthouse was the second in Yates Center and replaced a wooden building moved to the city from Defiance. Architect George P. Washburn, who designed thirteen county courthouses in Kansas, designed the building; its design is similar to Washburn's Kingman County Courthouse. The brick courthouse sits on a limestone base and has a

Late Victorian Victorian architecture is a series of architectural revival styles in the mid-to-late 19th century. ''Victorian'' refers to the reign of Queen Victoria (1837–1901), called the Victorian era, during which period the styles known as Victorian we ...

design which includes elements of the

Romanesque Revival Romanesque Revival (or Neo-Romanesque) is a style of building employed beginning in the mid-19th century inspired by the 11th- and 12th-century Romanesque architecture. Unlike the historic Romanesque style, Romanesque Revival buildings tended to ...

, Queen Anne, and Free Classical styles. The building is topped by four corner towers and a central

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 ...

. Three of the courthouse's four entrances feature arched doorways surrounded by porches, while the north entrance has a large limestone arch around the doorway and no porch. The first and second floor windows are rectangular, while the attic windows are arched and sit atop the second floor windows; all sets of windows are connected by stone bands encircling the building. The 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 ...

on October 10, 1985. It is part of the Yates Center Courthouse Square Historic District, which is also on the National Register.

References

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* Courthouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Kansas Victorian architecture in Kansas Romanesque Revival architecture in Kansas Queen Anne architecture in Kansas Government buildings completed in 1900 Buildings and structures in Woodson County, Kansas County courthouses in Kansas National Register of Historic Places in Woodson County, Kansas {{Kansas-NRHP-stub