The Carroll County Courthouse is located in

Carroll, Iowa Carroll is a city in, and the county seat of, Carroll County, Iowa, United States, along the Middle Raccoon River. The population was 10,321 in the 2020 census. History Carroll was laid out in 1867. It took its name from Carroll County, wh ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. The current structure is the fourth courthouse to house court functions and county administration.

History

The first

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...

in Carroll County was the village of Carrollton. The courthouse there was begun in 1858 and required two contractors to complete it as the first died before the building was completed. A second story was added to the building in 1865. The county seat was moved to the city of Carroll in 1868 and a former railroad station was rented for county use. A $4,000 courthouse was built upon the square the railroad sold the county for a dollar in 1869. It was destroyed in a fire in the spring of 1886. In the interim, county offices were moved to the Joyce Lumber Company office building and court sessions were held in a music hall. A new

Victorian Victorian or Victorians may refer to: 19th century * Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign ** Victorian architecture ** Victorian house ** Victorian decorative arts ** Victorian fashion ** Victorian literatur ...

courthouse was completed in 1887. The

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

building featured a

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, usually dome-like structure on top of a building often crowning a larger roof or dome. Cupolas often serve as a roof lantern to admit light and air or as a lookout. The word derives, via Ital ...

with a clock. The present three-story

Modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

structure was completed in 1965 for $750,000. Its parking lot is the location of the old courthouse, which was torn down after the present building was completed.

References

Government buildings completed in 1965 Modernist architecture in Iowa County courthouses in Iowa Buildings and structures in Carroll County, Iowa Carroll, Iowa {{Iowa-struct-stub