The Cuyahoga County Courthouse stretches along Lakeside Avenue at the north end of the Cleveland Mall in

downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in American and Canadian English to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political, and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district ( ...

Cleveland Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

. The building was listed on the National Register along with the mall district in 1975. Other notable buildings of the Group Plan are the Howard M. Metzenbaum U.S. Courthouse designed by Arnold Brunner, the

Cleveland Public Library The Cleveland Public Library is a public library system in Cleveland, Ohio. Founded in 1869, it had a circulation of 3.5 million items in 2020. It operates the Main Library on Superior Avenue in downtown Cleveland, 27 branches throughout the cit ...

, the Board of Education Building, Cleveland City Hall, and

Public Auditorium Public Auditorium is a multi-purpose performing arts, entertainment, sports, and exposition facility located in the civic center district of downtown Cleveland. The building features two large performance spaces: the 10,000-capacity Public Hall ...

History

Cuyahoga County Cuyahoga County ( or , see ) is a large urban county located in the northeastern part of the U.S. state of Ohio. The county seat and most populous city is Cleveland. As of the 2020 census, its population was 1,264,817, making it the second ...

was established in 1807 with the county seat still in the air. The county decided to place the temporary county seat in the largest settlement of Cleveland. The courts met in various taverns and inns around town while waiting for the courthouse to be built. This first courthouse was designed and built by Levi Johnson. The building was completed in 1813 and was a simple

Federal style Federal-style architecture is the name for the classical architecture built in the United States following the American Revolution between 1780 and 1830, and particularly from 1785 to 1815, which was influenced heavily by the works of And ...

stone structure. The structure was five bays wide and two piles deep, with doors located in the center and to the right corner of the facade. A rectangular window was located between these doors with a smaller square window to the left of the central door. Five rectangular windows lit the second floor. The pitched roof was framed by brick chimneys on either end. The clapboard siding was painted red with white trim boards. Second cuyahoga courthouse

The county occupied this courthouse when the decision was made to make Cleveland the permanent county seat. The county soon erected a new courthouse in 1828. Henry Noble built the new courthouse of brick two stories tall. The front of the courthouse was framed by four colossal

Doric columns The Doric order is one of the three orders of ancient Greek and later Roman architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. The Doric is most easily recognized by the simple circular capitals at the top of t ...

supporting an

entablature An entablature (; nativization of Italian , from "in" and "table") is the superstructure of moldings and bands which lies horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and ...

. The interior was illuminated by large rectangular windows piercing the facade. The flat roof supported 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 ...

which located in the center of the building. The cupola rose on Ionic columns and supported a lantern capped by a weather vane. This courthouse remained in use until the 1850s. The growth of Cleveland, and consequently the legal business of Cuyahoga County, had for some time foreshadowed the necessity for increased courthouse facilities, and action was taken in the period now under consideration. It was decided to clear

Public Square A town square (or public square, urban square, city square or simply square), also called a plaza or piazza, is an open public space commonly found in the heart of a traditional town or city, and which is used for community gatherings. Relat ...

permanently of official buildings, and accordingly a new structure and a new site were agreed upon. This latter was situated just north of the northwest corner of Public Square, on the north side of Rockwell street. On November 10, 1857, the County Commissioners contracted with George P. Smith and James Pannell to erect a substantial stone edifice, three stories high, at a cost of $152,500. The new third courthouse was designed by J.J. Husband, an amateur designer, built in 1858. This new building, built of stone was designed in the Italianate style. The building has a square footprint with a central entrance. The entrance is contained a slightly projected bay with two windows on either side. The windows in the basement are small arched panels with the main floor windows slightly larger. The second floor windows are large arched windows separated by Corinthian

pilasters In architecture, a pilaster is both a load-bearing section of thickened wall or column integrated into a wall, and a purely decorative element in classical architecture which gives the appearance of a supporting column and articulates an ext ...

. A decorative

frieze In classical architecture, the frieze is the wide central section of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic order, Ionic or Corinthian order, Corinthian orders, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Patera (architecture), Paterae are also ...

separated the second floor from the third floor and a pediment topping the center projection. A

mansard roof A mansard or mansard roof (also called French roof or curb roof) is a multi-sided gambrel-style hip roof characterised by two slopes on each of its sides, with the lower slope at a steeper angle than the upper, and often punctured by dormer wi ...

tops the building with

dormer A dormer is a roofed structure, often containing a window, that projects vertically beyond the plane of a Roof pitch, pitched roof. A dormer window (also called ''dormer'') is a form of roof window. Dormers are commonly used to increase the ...

windows lining the facade. Four large chimneys framed the building on the sides. This building, eventually called "the old court-house," filled all the requirements of county business until 1875. Ground was then purchased on Seneca Street (West 3rd St.), running back to the county jail on Rockwell street, and a contract let for a new court-house, at a cost of $250,000. So, in 1875 a 4th courthouse was constructed. It was nearly square, running seventy feet in each direction with rooms for various officials and the courts in the Seneca (West 3rd St.) front of the building, with the jail in the rear. In 1884 the county was faced with a problem of room and space in the courtroom and the decision was made to expand the current building than to build a new one. Therefore, a still further increase of facilities was made in 1884, when two stories were added to the old building on public square, at a cost of nearly $100,000. The building transformed from a -story building to a 5-story building. The facade was changed as well with the central projection going from one arched window to three arched windows on the second and third floor and four arched windows on the fourth and fifth. To either side of the central projection is an arched window. A larger pediment tops the projection with

dentil A dentil (from Lat. ''dens'', a tooth) is a small block used as a repeating ornament in the bedmould of a cornice. Dentils are found in ancient Greek and Roman architecture, and also in later styles such as Neoclassical, Federal, Georgian Rev ...

moldings lining the overhangs. The hipped roof rose to support a small gabled tower with a decorative frieze. The chimneys on the sides were built up to rise over the roof and were each equipped with pipes that ventilated many fireplaces and heaters. File:Third cuyahoga courthouse.jpg, The fourth courthouse located on Seneca Street built in 1875 File:Third cuyahoga courthouse remodel.jpg, The third courthouse built between 1858 and 1860 on Public Square after the remodel of 1884. The county was in need once again of larger facilities for county operations and the design was awarded to Walter Blythe. The site that was chosen was along the Cleveland Mall and was designed in the style that matched many of the Beaux Arts style of the federal buildings sprouting along the

Washington D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

Mall. It is one of several buildings built as part of the Cleveland Group Plan of 1903, an early City Beautiful-era city plan designed by

Daniel Burnham Daniel Hudson Burnham (September 4, 1846 – June 1, 1912) was an American architect and urban designer. A proponent of the ''Beaux-Arts architecture, Beaux-Arts'' movement, he may have been "the most successful power broker the American archi ...

, Arnold Brunner, and John Carrere. All previous courthouses have since been demolished.

Exterior

The building was constructed from 1906 to 1912 by the architectural firm of Lehman & Schmitt. The building is

Beaux Arts style 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 B ...

and is constructed of Milford pink granite from

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

. The rusticated masonry of the ground floor includes deeply recessed and arched windows and doors. A protruding keystone tops each one. The front entrance is flanked by bronze statues of

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (, 1743July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was the primary author of the United States Declaration of Indepe ...

and

Alexander Hamilton Alexander Hamilton (January 11, 1755 or 1757July 12, 1804) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the first U.S. secretary of the treasury from 1789 to 1795 dur ...

sculpted by Karl Bitter. Directly above the front entry doors are three large arched windows between fluted columns of the

Ionic order The Ionic order is one of the three canonic classical order, orders of classical architecture, the other two being the Doric order, Doric and the Corinthian order, Corinthian. There are two lesser orders: the Tuscan order, Tuscan (a plainer Doric) ...

allowing daylight into the courtroom within. The

of the

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative Moulding (decorative), moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, ar ...

includes the inscription "Cuyahoga County Courthouse". Above the cornice are several stone statues of historical law givers. Two of these figures, of

Edward I Edward I (17/18 June 1239 – 7 July 1307), also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots (Latin: Malleus Scotorum), was King of England from 1272 to 1307. Concurrently, he was Lord of Ireland, and from 125 ...

and

John Hampden John Hampden (24 June 1643) was an English politician from Oxfordshire, who was killed fighting for Roundhead, Parliament in the First English Civil War. An ally of Parliamentarian leader John Pym, and a cousin of Oliver Cromwell, he was one of ...

, were sculpted by

Daniel Chester French Daniel Chester French (April 20, 1850 – October 7, 1931) was an American sculpture, sculptor in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His works include ''The Minute Man'', an 1874 statue in Concord, Massachusetts, and his Statue of Abr ...

. The rear elevation facing

Lake Erie Lake Erie ( ) is the fourth-largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and also has the shortest avera ...

is composed similarly, but with the inscription "Obedience to Law is Liberty". A

pediment Pediments are a form of gable in classical architecture, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the cornice (an elaborated lintel), or entablature if supported by columns.Summerson, 130 In an ...

with a plain tympanum surmounts the central element of the facade on both the north and south elevations. A statue of

Alfred the Great Alfred the Great ( ; – 26 October 899) was King of the West Saxons from 871 to 886, and King of the Anglo-Saxons from 886 until his death in 899. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf and his first wife Osburh, who both died when Alfr ...

stands on the north side of the building."Alfred the Great", Isidore Konti 1910"
. Sculpture Center. Retrieved July 5, 2017 The interior contains murals by Frank Brangwyn,

Violet Oakley Violet Oakley (June 10, 1874 – February 25, 1961) was an American artist. She was the first American woman to receive a public mural commission. During the first quarter of the 20th century, she was renowned as a pathbreaker in mural decoratio ...

, Charles Yardley Turner, Max Bohm and Frederick Wilson.

References

External links

Images and architectural information

History

Exterior

See also

References

External links

Further reading