The Blue Earth County Historic Courthouse is the former

courthouse A courthouse or court house is a structure which houses judicial functions for a governmental entity such as a state, region, province, county, prefecture, regency, or similar governmental unit. A courthouse is home to one or more courtrooms, ...

Blue Earth County, Minnesota Blue Earth County is a County (United States), county in the U.S. state, state of Minnesota. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 69,112. Its county seat is Mankato, Minnesota, Mankato. The county is named for t ...

, United States, in the city of

Mankato Mankato ( ) is a city in Blue Earth, Nicollet, and Le Sueur counties in the U.S. state of Minnesota. It is the county seat of Blue Earth County, Minnesota. The population was 44,488 at the 2020 census, making it the 21st-largest city in Mi ...

, the

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 ...

. It is listed 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 ...

. Court services were moved from the Historic Courthouse to the Blue Earth County Justice Center, located at 401 Carver Rd, Mankato, Minnesota in 2009.

History

The building, completed in 1889, was the second courthouse in the county. The first courthouse in the county, a 20-by-24 foot one-story stone building, was built in 1857. According to local

Welsh-language Welsh ( or ) is a Celtic language of the Brittonic subgroup that is native to the Welsh people. Welsh is spoken natively in Wales by about 18% of the population, by some in England, and in (the Welsh colony in Chubut Province, Argentina). ...

poet James D. Price, whose

Bardic name A bardic name (, ) is a pseudonym used in Wales, Cornwall, or Brittany by poets and other artists, especially those involved in the eisteddfod movement. The Welsh language, Welsh term bardd ('poet') originally referred to the Welsh poets of the M ...

was "Ap Dewi", the first

Eisteddfod In Welsh culture, an ''eisteddfod'' is an institution and festival with several ranked competitions, including in poetry and music. The term ''eisteddfod'', which is formed from the Welsh morphemes: , meaning 'sit', and , meaning 'be', means, a ...

held in

took place at the Blue Earth County Courthouse on January 1, 1873. By the mid 1800s, the county commissioners felt that the previous buildings were a "disgrace and gave strangers that we were behind the times. That the county was either poverty stricken or greatly lacking in enterprise." At this time, there was a debate on whether to relocate the county seat to Garden City or have it remain in Mankato. After much debate, a building was started in 1886. The new building, designed by

Minneapolis Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...

architects Haley & Allen, combined a Second Empire roof and dome with

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 ...

features. The stone was provided by a local quarry, with various techniques giving it both rusticated and

ashlar Ashlar () is a cut and dressed rock (geology), stone, worked using a chisel to achieve a specific form, typically rectangular in shape. The term can also refer to a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, a ...

surfaces. The copper-sheathed dome is capped with a statue of

Lady Justice Lady Justice () is an allegorical personification of the moral force in judicial systems. Her attributes are scales, a sword and sometimes a blindfold. She often appears as a pair with Prudentia. Lady Justice originates from the personificat ...

References

External links

Blue Earth County web site
{{National Register of Historic Places in Minnesota Buildings and structures in Blue Earth County, Minnesota Clock towers in Minnesota County courthouses in Minnesota Courthouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Minnesota Italianate architecture in Minnesota Mankato, Minnesota National Register of Historic Places in Blue Earth County, Minnesota Welsh-American culture in Minnesota 1889 establishments in Minnesota