The Boulder County Courthouse is a historic building on Pearl Street in

Boulder, Colorado Boulder is a home rule city that is the county seat and most populous municipality of Boulder County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 108,250 at the 2020 United States census, making it the 12th most populous city in Color ...

, built in 1933. The courthouse is a

contributing property In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic distri ...

to the

Downtown Boulder Historic District The Downtown Boulder Historic District, in Boulder, Colorado, is a historic district which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. Additional significance for the district was recognized in 2018 for association of the ...

, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. In 2018, additional information about the building was added to the documentation of the district.

History

The original courthouse was built in 1882 by F.E. Edbrooke, but was destroyed by a fire in 1932. The present courthouse was re-built on the same site in the following year. It is a five-story building designed by architect Glen H. Huntington, son of prolific Denver architect Glen Wood Huntington, in WPA Moderne style (a restrained form of Art Deco architecture). It features vertical lines, a tower, and little ornamentation. The courthouse no longer houses the actual courts for Boulder County, but it remains the seat of county government. It was one of the first courthouses in the US to issue same-sex marriage licenses in 1975, when

Boulder County Boulder County is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado of the United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 330,758. The most populous municipality in the county and the county seat is Boulder. Boulder County comprises th ...

clerk Clela Rorex issued licenses to 6 same-sex couples. In 1980, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as one of 125

contributing buildings In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic distric ...

in the

., a 187-page PDF. With . Includes Additional Documentation from 2018 on pages 102-118 of 187-page text PDF. Note tha
NARA's version of NRHP nomination
a 166-page PDF, includes 1978 text and photos but not 2018 AD. In 2018, the historic district's official documentation was updated "to recognize an additional area of significance of Social History for the Boulder County Courthouse, as well as the district generally, for association with the first same-sex marriage licenses issued in Colorado and the civil rights struggles of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) people." Additional documentation from 2018, signed, is pages 102-118 within 187-page PDF which is otherwise the 1978 nomination of the HD. This additional documentation in unsigned but possibly final draft version of AD was included as the last 15 pages of 88-page agenda packet for the May 18, 2018 meeting of the Colorado State Register Review Board.

References

{{reflist History of LGBT civil rights in the United States National Register of Historic Places in Boulder County, Colorado Courthouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Colorado Downtown Boulder Historic District WPA Moderne architecture