No need to enter the building to claim this virtual. Answers are obtained from the outside property. Hope you enjoy the history of this building as much as I do. Thanks!
In order to get credit for this virtual, send me the answer to the following questions:
1. What item is at the bottom of the statue on the side facing the courthouse? (6 letters)
2. What color is the steel point on the post in the NW corner of the lawn? (N 39° 28.826 W 86° 3.331)
3. Post a picture of you(face doesn’t have to be included) or a personal item at the courthouse
The First Courthouse (October 16, 1823)
The first court in Johnson County was held at Smiley's Mill which is 5 miles Southeast of Franklin.
The Second Courthouse (March 1824)
The second court was held at the home of George King, which was west of downtown.
The Third Courthouse (Summer 1824 -- Spring 1832)
Work began on the first permanent courthouse in the spring of 1824. The contract was let to William Shaffer, a carpenter who was also the county recorder. The courthouse was located on the north end of Lot 36 of the original plat.
The building was a two story hewn log structure with an exterior staircase to the second floor. In 1826, the building was improved first by ‘daubing’ the exterior log joints, and later by the addition of sealing and exterior weatherboarding. The first floor was designated for use as a general public meeting space and the second floor was reserved for the courtroom. The court space was furnished with a table and two chairs for the use of the judge and clerk, and a number of benches for the attorneys, litigants, jury, and spectators. The exact date of completion of this building is unknown, but it was ready for the fall term of the Circuit Court in September, 1824. There is no record of the court actually being in session in the fall of 1824, so the first recorded session of the Circuit Court in the public courthouse is the term of March, 1825. All sessions thereafter were held at the same location.
The court met on the 3rd Monday of each March and September, and would stay in session for up to six days if the amount of business warranted.
No other county office or officials were allocated office space in the building, but the Board of Commissioners did use the building for their meetings. Other county officers conducted the county’s business at their respective homes.
The Fourth Courthouse (Spring 1832 -- May 18, 1849) (Destroyed by fire)
At the January, 1830, session of the Board of Commissioners, a decision was made to advertise for bids for the construction of a new, larger courthouse. The proposed new courthouse was to be “a brick house for a court house forty feet square, two stories high, with two doors to be covered and a suitable cupola. The foundation to be built one foot with rock”.
Evidently, no suitable bids were received, so at the March meeting, a committee of three was appointed to attend at the court house on Tuesday, March 9, 1830, and let out to the lowest bidder a contract for “the building of a brick house in the town of Franklin, for a court house to set on the public square, to be forty feet square, two stories high”. The plan of the new building was to be agreed upon by the committee and the contractor, and the committee was also authorized to enter into Articles of Agreement for the building of said house, to take good bonds with approved security for the faithful performance of the contract, and was also authorized to contract for the payment.
A contract for the new courthouse was let on March 9, 1830 to Samuel and John Herriott for one thousand four hundred twenty seven dollars, and the county made an advance payment of five hundred dollars.
At the May, 1830, meeting of the commissioners the contractors agreed to make several alterations to the design, including putting in only one exterior door, to be on the north side of the building, relocating the office spaces, and revising the specifications for the brick walls of the structure. No change in the price of the contract was noted in the meeting minutes.
In the spring of 1831, as the construction work was underway, the commissioners ordered additional revisions, requiring that the contractors install additional timbers “to make the house sufficient and permanent”, and approved additional payments to the contractors for this added work.
At the July, 1831, meeting, the commissioners ordered still more changes, including having the contractor not install any interior partition walls, and adding back the door originally located on the south side (that had been deleted in the May, 1830 revisions). At this same meeting a contract was let to William Schaffer for the “inside work” on the building.
After the numerous changes ordered during construction, the building was completed and accepted by the commissioners on May 5, 1832. Additional interior work completed over the next three years included partitioning some of the space to provide offices for the clerk and the recorder, creation of a jury room, and major improvements to the courtroom itself.
At the August, 1848, meeting of the county board, Peter Shuck and Samuel Eccles were named as a committee to procure plans and specifications for a new court house to replace the 1832 building with a larger and more modern structure. At the meeting in December, 1848, bids were invited to be filed in the clerk's office by January 15, 1849, for the construction of this proposed new courthouse. However, at the time for the opening of bids, the matter was continued and new plans ordered. No further action was taken on the proposal.
On May 18, 1849, the second courthouse was destroyed by a fire, thus making the construction of a new courthouse an immediate need.
The Fifth Courthouse (Summer 1850 -- December 12, 1874) (Destroyed by fire)
Acting with the urgency caused by the fire, the commissioners adopted at their next session plans for construction of a new courthouse. The new building was to be fifty feet wide by eighty-four feet long with a limestone foundation and brick exterior. Plans were drawn by John Elder, and bids were advertised for in the Indiana State Sentinel and The Franklin Examiner. On July 4, 1849, the board met and awarded the contract to Edwin May, of Indianapolis, for ten thousand and eighty-four dollars.
At this time a controversy arose about the location of the new building. By the original plat of the public square. Main Street was extended through the same, and the Town Board, at the insistence of many citizens, ordered the marshal to open up Main Street through the square. The county board reached a compromise with the town whereby the new court house was to be erected in the middle of the east half of the square, with the west line of the courthouse to be ten feet east of Main Street.
Work began immediately on the new building and progressed rapidly without the series of change orders that had delayed the construction of the 1832 building. Adding to the activity on the town square at the time, the Town of Franklin was erecting a public market on the northwest corner of the square, and a new jail was being constructed on the southwest corner.
In an apparent concern about fire safety, the commissioners ordered two Cannon Coal Stoves for use in the courtroom, and five additional smaller coal stoves for use in the other offices. The treasurer was instructed to purchase a car load of coal for use in the stoves, the first recorded use of this heating fuel in the county.
The building was ready for occupancy in 1850, and for the first time in the county's history, all of the county officers were ordered to keep their offices in the new court house. However, the officers were slow to move in, and the board found it necessary in June, 1851, to enter an order "to compel Henry Fox ( county treasurer) to take possession and use the proper room in the east side of the court house down stairs.” At the same time, the clerk was authorized to rent his room in the court house to Finch & Slater for one year at a rental of forty dollars exclusive of, or fifty dollars including fuel, but noted that the tenants shall not be allowed to use a wood stove. The firm of Hay & Williams also rented rooms in the court house for their printing office in 1852. The court room itself was frequently used for church services.
Once again, fire destroyed the court house. On the evening of December 12, 1874, fire broke out in the stairway leading to the cupola and completely destroyed the building and many records and papers.
The Sixth Courthouse (Spring 1875 -- Summer 1882)
The next court house was a temporary frame structure hastily built by the county on the south side of the town square. Although the intent was that this building would be only a temporary location for the county offices and courts, considerable controversy erupted that delayed the plans for a new permanent courthouse. Although there was general agreement that a new, and larger, courthouse was needed, the issue of Main Street running through the center of the public square, and concerns over the proposed designs and costs were points of contention.
Finally, in 1879, the county grand jury reported the frame structure to be an unsuitable facility for the storage of the county records. This finding moved the commissioners to proceed with plans to build a new, permanent courthouse as a replacement for the 1832 building that had burned in 1874.
The Seventh Courthouse (Summer 1882 -- Present)
On March 26, 1879, the Board of Commissioners resolved to begin the process for construction of a new courthouse. Architect George W. Bunting was contracted to develop plans for the new building. The plans were submitted for the board’s approval some four months later. The plans were accepted, and the board then authorized a bond issue of seventy-five thousand dollars, to pay for the anticipated costs of the new building.
The contract for construction was awarded on September 8, 1879, to Farman & Pierce on their bid of seventy-nine thousand one hundred dollars. The contract was executed on behalf of the county on September 22, 1879, and James H. Pudney was named superintendent of the construction project.
The construction work took a little more than two years. The contractors claimed a large loss on the work, and filed a claim with the auditor on December 10, 1881, showing the loss to be more than twenty thousand dollars, and asking relief of the board. No record is found that their request was favorably considered or acted on.
On August 31, 1882, the board entered an order requiring all county officers to move into the new building by September 5, 1882. That same month, they ordered a telephone placed in the court room, the first use of a telephone in a county office.
The courthouse served the needs of the county for a century with only remodeling work to upgrade facilities and rearrange the space for the various courts and offices. Eventually, there was no space left for renovation, so the county constructed a new building, referred to as the “Courthouse Annex” across the street on the south side of the public square. Completed in 1983, that building was constructed on the site of the former jail building.
The addition of the annex building added space to allow for a major renovation/restoration of the courthouse itself, and provided space for distribution of the various courts and county offices. The main courthouse itself currently houses primarily the courts and clerk, while most other county offices such as the treasurer, assessor, and recorder are now located in the annex building.
Virtual Rewards 2.0 - 2019/2020
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between June 4, 2019 and June 4, 2020. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards 2.0 on the Geocaching Blog.
Thanks to the Johnson County Museum of History for all the historical information on the courthouse!
Congrats to fairyleg on FTF!