Page:History of Richland County, Ohio.djvu/400

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��HISTORY OF RICHLAND COUNTY.

��B. McCarron, to whom we thus trace the honor of being the architect of the old court house. Be his name embalmed. On the 8th, they or- dered advertisements for bids for contract thereof This contract was, on the 19th of April, awarded to McCarron & Sheffler, who agreed, for the sum of $7,000, to put the old court house into the traveling condition in which it appeared but a few weeks since. But they proved to have the happy faculty of pil- ing in extras, and were allowed therefor, until the remodeling cost from $14,000 to $16,000, which exact amount seems never to have come to the A'ulgar eye. Like some ships and womankind, the rigging cost vastly more than the hull.

" The old court house has never been a fa- vorite with our people, not from any intrinsic f-ault of its own, perhaps, but because it looked bad, which the poor thing could not help. The destroyers are now upon it, and it will soon be numbered among the things that were. Yet its old bricks and mortar have long heard the thrilling tones of eloquence, the fiat of the law, the shriek of anguish, the appeal for justice, the trials for murder and larceny, for divorce and seduction, backed by eloquence in all its branches. The calf-pen of the Judge, the well-seasoned seats where the wearj' jurors alternately cursed and slept, the chicken-coop above them all — all, all are gone to repair a stable or stop the holes where ' looped and windowed raggedness' gave passage to the winter's snow. The room where the tax-pay- ers have annually grumbled ; where the deeds of all the soil have been recorded ; where all the accounts, pro and con, have been audited, and where the bashful swain has so often come to get cured of lovesickness, b}^ securing the document that authorized him and some one else to become one flesh, with two dispositions — have been disrupted, as have many of the mar- riages therein authorized. The gouty pillars of plastered brick, as expressionless as the

��lumber that surmounted all, are being demol- ished and borne away, no longer to annoy the eye of taste or sadden the memory of those who have been actors in its dingy premises."

Thus, in 1873, passed away the old court house, which had withstood the storms of nearl}^ half a century, which had come to the little hamlet in the wilderness, and left it a city.

The immense cost put upon the reconstruc- tion of the old court house, and the outland- ish appearance and inconvenience of the struct- ure created universal dissatisfaction, if not disgust. The Commissioners, under whom the work was done, became unpopular in the ex- treme, as did the result of their labor, and but a few 3^ears elapsed before a vote was called upon the question of erecting a new court house. It was on three separate occasions defeated by the people, and finally the law of 1869 was passed, authorizing the Commission- ers of counties to purchase grounds, erect court houses, jails, etc.

In that year (1869), the Commissioners pur- chased of Mrs. Mary E. Reid and S. E. and J. W. Jenner the three lots on the southeast cor- ner of East Diamond and East Market streets, on which the new court house stands, for the sum of $16,500. These lots were then much higher than the street, but were graded down to a level with it.

January 12, 1870, the Commissioners, David Taylor, D. M. Snyder and J. T. Keith, entered into a contract with H. E. Myer, architect, of Cleveland, to furnish a plan and specifications for a new court house, which plan was accepted, and the 10th of May set apart for opening bids for construction of the same. The entire dimen- sions, except the steps, are 104x129 feet ; height of basement 12 feet in the clear; first floor 18 feet ; second floor, 16 feet ; court room, 31 feet.

The contract was awarded on the 10th of May, to William Miller, J. G. Frayer, and Leonard Sheets, for $177,000. On Tuesday, the 27th of

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