The Yell County Courthouse is a

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, ...

Dardanelle, Arkansas Dardanelle is a city in northeast Yell County, Arkansas, United States. The population was 4,517 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Along with Danville, Arkansas, Danville, it serves as a county seat for Yell County. It is located ne ...

, United States, one of two

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 ...

s of Yell County, built in 1914. It was 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 ...

in 1992. The courthouse is the second building to serve the Dardanelle district of Yell County.

History

Yell County was founded from portions of

Scott Scott may refer to: Places Canada * Scott, Quebec, municipality in the Nouvelle-Beauce regional municipality in Quebec * Scott, Saskatchewan, a town in the Rural Municipality of Tramping Lake No. 380 * Rural Municipality of Scott No. 98, Sas ...

and

Pope The pope is the bishop of Rome and the Head of the Church#Catholic Church, visible head of the worldwide Catholic Church. He is also known as the supreme pontiff, Roman pontiff, or sovereign pontiff. From the 8th century until 1870, the po ...

counties in 1840. A courthouse was established at

Monrovia Monrovia () is the administrative capital city, capital and largest city of Liberia. Founded in 1822, it is located on Cape Mesurado on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast and as of the 2022 census had 1,761,032 residents, home to 33.5% of Liber ...

, but was soon relocated to Danville to be more centrally located. Following the

Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...

in 1875, Dardanelle was made a second county seat. Arkansas has ten counties with dual county seats. A commercial building on Front Street between Green and Oak Streets in Dardanelle was made into the district's first courthouse in 1875, and a jail was built close by. The courthouse burned on April 12, 1912, leading the county to buy a new plot of land on Union Street. Yell County contracted architect

Frank W. Gibb Frank W. Gibb (died 1932) was an architect in Little Rock, Arkansas. He was a member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) during 1901–1917 He is credited with design work for 60 courthouses in Arkansas. A number of his works are liste ...

, who in his lifetime designed 60 courthouses in Arkansas as well as the Arkansas Building at the

St. Louis World's Fair The Louisiana Purchase Exposition, informally known as the St. Louis World's Fair, was an international exposition held in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, from April 30 to December 1, 1904. Local, state, and federal funds totaling $15 mill ...

and the Buckstaff Bathhouse in

Hot Springs, Arkansas Hot Springs is a resort city in the state of Arkansas and the county seat of Garland County, Arkansas, Garland County. The city is located in the Ouachita Mountains among the U.S. Interior Highlands, and is set among several natural hot springs ...

. Contractor L.R. Wight and Company of

Dallas, Texas Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth-most ...

built the structure for under $25,000 (equivalent to $ today).

Architecture

Similar to the Dallas County Courthouse in Fordyce built by Gibb in 1911, the building features typical details of the neoclassical style. The symmetric facade with

doric column 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 ...

s and white trim all fit with the style. An octagonal roof ornament tops the T-shaped building.

Confederate monument

The Dardanelle Confederate Monument on Union Street was erected by the

United Daughters of the Confederacy The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) is an American neo-Confederate hereditary association for female descendants of Confederate Civil War soldiers engaging in the commemoration of these ancestors, the funding of monuments to them, a ...

(UDC) in 1921, and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1996 as part of the Civil War Commemorative Sculpture Multiple Property Submission.

References

{{National Register of Historic Places County courthouses in Arkansas Courthouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Arkansas Government buildings completed in 1914 National Register of Historic Places in Yell County, Arkansas Neoclassical architecture in Arkansas Dardanelle, Arkansas 1914 establishments in Arkansas

History

Architecture

Confederate monument

See also

References