The Kankakee County Courthouse in Courthouse Square is a historic building in

Kankakee, Illinois Kankakee ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Kankakee County, Illinois, United States. Located on the Kankakee River, as of 2020, the city's population was 24,052. Kankakee is a principal city of the Kankakee-Bourbonnais-Bradley, IL MSA, Kan ...

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 ...

that has been home to the government of Kankakee County since 1912. The current structure, the third county courthouse, took three years to build and is considered a fine example of

Beaux-Arts architecture Beaux-Arts architecture ( , ) was the academic architectural style taught at the in Paris, particularly from the 1830s to the end of the 19th century. It drew upon the principles of French neoclassicism, but also incorporated Renaissance and ...

History

The area now known as Courthouse Square in

was originally used by the

Potawatomi The Potawatomi (), also spelled Pottawatomi and Pottawatomie (among many variations), are a Native American tribe of the Great Plains, upper Mississippi River, and western Great Lakes region. They traditionally speak the Potawatomi language, ...

as a council ground. European settlement began in 1832 with the Treaty of Camp Tippecanoe. In 1851, the

Illinois Central Railroad The Illinois Central Railroad , sometimes called the Main Line of Mid-America, is a railroad in the Central United States. Its primary routes connected Chicago, Illinois, with New Orleans, New Orleans, Louisiana, and Mobile, Alabama, and thus, ...

decided to build a station in what is now Kankakee. The Associates Land Company, formed by supporters of the Illinois Central, purchased and

plat In the United States, a plat ( or ) (plan) is a cadastral map, drawn to scale, showing the divisions of a piece of land. United States General Land Office surveyors drafted township plats of Public Lands Survey System, Public Lands Surveys to ...

ted the land around the station, calling it Kankakee Depot. When Kankakee County was formed in 1853, Kankakee Depot competed with Momence to be named

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 ...

. The influence of the Associates Land Company, who offered to donate a large block of land and $5000 for a courthouse, swayed voters to select Kankakee Depot as seat. The first Kankakee County Courthouse was built shortly thereafter. The three-story building became a social center and trading place in addition to its capacities in county government.

Stephen A. Douglas Stephen Arnold Douglas (né Douglass; April 23, 1813 – June 3, 1861) was an American politician and lawyer from Illinois. As a United States Senate, U.S. senator, he was one of two nominees of the badly split Democratic Party (United States) ...

gave a speech in front of the courthouse during his 1858 Senate Campaign. On May 17, 1861, it was home to Kankakee County's only case of capital punishment when an African-American man was hanged from the second floor for the murder of a white girl. On October 5, 1872, the courthouse was destroyed in a fire. The limestone walls were cleaned and re-used in the second courthouse. The new courthouse was built to similar specification as the first. The main difference was the

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 ...

, which was railed higher than the first. The courthouse opened in October 1873. By the 1900s, it was evident that the county courthouse was too small for the county's use. The county population had recently grown to 37,000, an increase of 8,000 over the previous decade. In November 1908, voters approved the construction of a new courthouse, the current structure.

Zachary Taylor Davis Zachary Taylor Davis (May 26, 1869 – December 16, 1946) was the architect of several major Chicago buildings, including St. Ambrose (1904) Comiskey Park (1910), Wrigley Field (1914), Mount Carmel High School (1924), and St. James Chapel of Ar ...

was awarded the commission for the building. It was built by

Lafayette, Indiana Lafayette ( ) is a city in and is the county seat of Tippecanoe County, Indiana, United States, located northwest of Indianapolis and southeast of Chicago. According to the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population of Lafayette ...

contractor W. F. Stilwell for $187,000. Construction began on October 2, 1909, and finished in July 1912. In the 1930s, a protest with 200 farmers gathered at the courthouse to demand changes in property tax laws so that they would be paid after the harvest. By 1950, the population of the county exceeded 73,500 thanks to an industrial boom in the late 1940s. The courthouse has remained in use since its 1912 opening. On March 7, 2007, the building was recognized by the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, within the US Department of the Interior. The service manages all List ...

with a listing on 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 ...

. A shooting took place at this courthouse on the morning of August 26, 2021, where an unknown shooter killed 2 and injured 1. According to Mayor Christopher Curtis, the suspect has been apprehended.

References

{{Illinois county courthouses Government buildings completed in 1912 County courthouses in Illinois Courthouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Illinois Renaissance Revival architecture in Illinois Beaux-Arts architecture in Illinois Kankakee, Illinois 1912 establishments in Illinois National Register of Historic Places in Kankakee County, Illinois