The Darke County Courthouse, Sheriff's House and Jail are three historic buildings located at 504 South Broadway just south of West 4th Street in Greenville,

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

. On December 12, 1976, the three buildings of the present courthouse complex were added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

History

Darke County was formed in 1809 from parts of Miami County but was not formally organized until 1817. The county seat was placed at Greenville at the site of the old Fort Greenville on West Third Street. The first courthouse was built in 1824 and was a small wooden frame structure. The courts met on the first floor with the clerk's office a jury room on the second. The county remained at this location until the next courthouse was completed in 1834. This older courthouse was converted into a residence after this move. The courthouse of 1834 was placed in the public square and was designed by architect Allan LaMotte. This square building stood two stories tall with a hipped roof and a cupola rising from the center. This building was deemed to be too small for the county's needs and a new courthouse was planned. This old courthouse would serve as the town hall until it was removed to avoid any potential traffic hazards. The new courthouse was built in 1874 and was designed by Edwin May. The contracting bids went to Rouser & Rouser from

Dayton Dayton () is a city in Montgomery County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of cities in Ohio, sixth-most populous city in Ohio, with a population of 137,644 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The Dayton metro ...

. The sheriff's house and jail were built in 1870 on the same grounds as the courthouse and served in their roles until a new center was built. Today the sheriff's house is the Courthouse Annex while the old jail behind is used for storage of records and other county items.

Courthouse

The courthouse is designed in the Second Empire style with traces of

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style combined its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century It ...

style. The rectangular building is lined with Buena Vista sandstone with a rusticated foundation and smooth stones lining the floors above. The windows were designed as arches until long rectangular panels were placed during the renovation. Above each window is a decorative head casing in the shape of an

arch An arch is a curved vertical structure spanning an open space underneath it. Arches may support the load above them, or they may perform a purely decorative role. As a decorative element, the arch dates back to the 4th millennium BC, but stru ...

pediment Pediments are a form of gable in classical architecture, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the cornice (an elaborated lintel), or entablature if supported by columns.Summerson, 130 In an ...

. A central projection on the front facade is topped by a tower. The tower contains the main entrance with pilasters on either side holding a balcony. A pediment rests at the top floor and is surmounted by a statue of Justice. The tower rises to a dome which is capped by a spire. Four stone chimneys line the sides of the courthouse. The flat roof was once a mansard and is supported by a decorative entablature.

Sheriff's House and Jail

The sheriff's residence and the jail located beside the courthouse were built in 1870. The building is designed in the Italianate style. A central projection is flanked by a pair of windows on each floor with quoin edges on the projection and the building's corners. A

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

runs below the roof with geometric shapes including an

ellipse In mathematics, an ellipse is a plane curve surrounding two focus (geometry), focal points, such that for all points on the curve, the sum of the two distances to the focal points is a constant. It generalizes a circle, which is the special ty ...

square In geometry, a square is a regular polygon, regular quadrilateral. It has four straight sides of equal length and four equal angles. Squares are special cases of rectangles, which have four equal angles, and of rhombuses, which have four equal si ...

and

oval An oval () is a closed curve in a plane which resembles the outline of an egg. The term is not very specific, but in some areas of mathematics (projective geometry, technical drawing, etc.), it is given a more precise definition, which may inc ...

. The roof overhang contains brackets with three scroll grooves and supports the hipped roof. A pediment rests on the projection and contains an unadorned tympanum.

References

External links

Waymarking listing for Darke County CourthouseDarke County's 3 courthouses
{{DEFAULTSORT:Darke County Courthouse, Sheriff's House And Jail Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Ohio Buildings and structures in Greenville, Ohio County courthouses in Ohio Second Empire architecture in Ohio Renaissance Revival architecture in Ohio Houses completed in 1870 Government buildings completed in 1874 Clock towers in Ohio National Register of Historic Places in Darke County, Ohio Houses in Darke County, Ohio 1870 establishments in Ohio

History

Courthouse

Sheriff's House and Jail

References

Further reading

External links