“…Neither functional nor beautiful, but the object of much frustration, hopelessness, and public expense1.”
“…A disgrace to the community2.”
“The symbol of county government is lagging behind the times3.”
“The realization of the need for a new courthouse has been evident to most of our community for some time4.”
The fourth Delaware County Courthouse remains controversial more than fifty years after its construction. One look at the stark, brutalist structure makes it easy to assume that the quotes I led this post with describe it. Actually, they came from public reaction to its opulent predecessor. As much as we lionize Brentwood Tolan’s old courthouse today, I’m sad to say that it was an aging and obsolete relic by the time the 1960s rolled around.
Call it hometown bias, call it a lack of architectural pedigree, or call it downright stupid of me. Describe my opinion however you’d like, but I like its replacement, a building Munsonians still call the Delaware County Courthouse even though county courts haven’t been held there for more than thirty years. For many, it’s hard to fathom the shortsightedness of Delaware County’s decision to replace its landmark Beaux Arts courthouse with a featureless concrete box. I can’t say that I totally blame them when I drive to similar courthouses designed by the same architectural firm in Warsaw and Rockville!
There’s always more to the story than meets the eye, though, and here’s Delaware County’s.
Muncie had been home to two earlier courthouses by the time Delaware County’s third courthouse was built in 1887. The first was a 20×40 foot log cabin built in 1829 which sat away from the courthouse square. The second, erected in 1837, was a 45×45 foot brick building, two stories tall, with a central belfry that made it look similar to the old Perry County Courthouse in Rome. The third courthouse came fifty years after the second. Although no expense was spared in its construction, it didn’t hold up very well over time.
The contemporary opinion of our outspoken public tends to attribute the sorry state of the old courthouse to governmental misfeasance. Census figures paint a different story, though- the building was overused! From 1890 to 1960, the population of Kosciusko County increased by a net margin of 45.6% to 40,000 total residents, all served by its 1884 Tolan courthouse that cost a hair less than $200,000 when built. Parke County’s population decreased by a net margin of 23.6% in the same timeframe- just under 14,000 people lived there in 1960, all served by its $110,000 courthouse designed by the Tolans in 1882.
Muncie was much larger than either city. The population of Delaware County in 1890 was 30,131. By 1960, the population had blown up to 110,938- an increase of 152%! The courthouse in Muncie -built for $227,250.06- was stuck serving two times the combined amount of residents that its cousins in Warsaw and Rockville were individually required to provide for. All that extra use made maintaining the building much more difficult, and it aged much more rapidly.
Commissioners floated a replacement as early as 1938 when Delaware County’s population grew to nearly 74,000 people, but the effort was rebuked5. By 1944, The Muncie Evening Press noted that the bell inside the clock tower had fallen silent, and the clocks no longer provided the same time on each face. 162 feet below the clocks, a broken limestone staircase was deemed a “monument to neglect” by the same newspaper.
Regardless of the situation’s gravity, preservationists pointed towards an extensive interior renovation that allowed neighboring Grant County to keep its historic courthouse in Marion. Unfortunately, studies indicated that Muncie’s was impossible to modernize due to the “unusual width of [its] bearing partitions.” Even so, any theoretical reconfiguration of its floor plan would have provided next to no additional space6.
The situation worsened: forced to rent thousands of square feet of offices elsewhere downtown to supplement the cramped quarters of the old courthouse, local officials watched enviously as Floyd County constructed the state’s first City-County Building, which not only consolidated all county offices under one roof but sparked a rejuvenation of downtown New Albany as well7.
John F. Kennedy made a campaign stop at the courthouse in 1960 and had to be carried up its broken staircase! Finally fed up, county officials finally issued $2.9 million in bonds to construct the new courthouse. Aside from a rural minority worried about tax hikes, Delaware County citizens came around nearly unanimously, and the project was enthusiastically funded. The old courthouse met the wrecking ball in late 1966.
Its replacement was planned as futureproof and able to serve a population of 200,000. New York consultants Becker & Becker recommended a minimum of 57,000 square feet across four floors to accommodate seven new county offices moving in from rented quarters. Extra space in the auditor’s office was to be allocated for the anticipated use of computers. A drive-thru window would be incorporated for the treasurer’s office8.
Construction took two years. Upon completion, it was clear that the architects had designed a strikingly modern building, both visually and functionally. A concrete structure featuring narrow windows and a cantilevered east wing, civic and business leaders heralded the fourth Delaware County Courthouse as a boon to Muncie’s attempts towards a revitalized downtown. The new courthouse held 80,000 square feet over three stories and a basement and could accommodate additional floors if needed. An expansion to the east was even conceptualized to anchor the north end of a planned Walnut Street pedestrian mall9.
Despite the designers’ foresight and the optimism of local officials, the 1969 courthouse only served in that capacity for twenty-three years. In April 1992, county courts moved to the brand-new, much-maligned Delaware County Justice Center. It was a building so onerous that even after two years of delays, $6 million in cost overruns, and 526 change orders, two judges hated it so much that they refused to set foot in it and vacate the fourth courthouse10.
Order eventually came to the court, at least until 2021. That year, the courtrooms moved again to the former Wilson Middle School in rural Center Township. Nevertheless, the fourth Delaware County Courthouse still stands proudly even if it no longer houses the judicial system, while the county’s fifth courthouse, the Delaware County Justice Center, is now being renovated into condominiums.
The 1969 building remains a fine example of the brutalist style, an architectural mode we rarely see erected anymore but was common during the late 1960s and early 70s. Like it or not, it represented real progress for a manufacturing city square amid the space age. Just look at all those advertisements commending its dedication- eight pages of the Muncie Star were taken up by businesses saluting the building’s completion!
At the end of the day, the demise of the 1887 courthouse came from its overuse, its small size, the inability to reconfigure its rooms into a modern layout, and an overwhelming community desire to reach into the future instead of dwell in the past. Even though we view the old building with fond nostalgia now, it only took the citizens of Muncie about fifty years to start kicking around the idea of replacing it!
Delaware County’s fourth courthouse isn’t going away anytime soon. Today, the trend across Indiana is to preserve old courthouses, not tear them down. Still serving the community as the administrative center of county government, the building also serves as a unique contribution to Indiana’s portfolio of courthouse architecture: although it doesn’t feature many of the characteristics of a classic courthouse, I’ve wanted to get it added to the National Register of Historic Places for a long time. Whenever its final day comes, I suspect the outcry over its loss will equal or surpass that of its predecessor….at least from me.
TL;DR
Delaware County (pop. 117,671, 14/92)
Muncie (pop. 70.085).
15/92 photographed
Built: 1969
Cost: $2.4 million ($15.67 million in 2016)
Architect: Hamilton, Graham Associates and George W. Cox
Style: Brutalist
Courthouse Square: Shelbyville Square
Height: 3 stories
Current use: County offices
Photographed: 8/15/15, 7/18/16
Sources Cited
1 Wade, E.C. “She’s Opposed to New Courthouse” The Muncie EveningPress [Muncie] September 17 1965: 4. Print.
2 “Commissioners Tell Courthouse Plans” The Muncie Star [Muncie] September 8 1965: 1. Print.
3 “’Citizens Army Launches Petition Drive for New Courthouse” The Muncie Evening Press [Muncie] September 10 1965: 14. Print.
4“Courthouse Or New Jail Here? No Decision!” The Muncie Evening Press [Muncie] May 20 1938: 1. Print.
5 “Taxpayers Association Backs New Courthouse” The Muncie Star [Muncie] September 23 1965: 8. Print.
6 “Plans for New Courthouse Get Labor Council’s Full Support” The Muncie Star [Muncie] September 8 1965: 1. Print.
7 “New Albany Builds Remedy for Decay” The Muncie Evening Press [Muncie] July 9, 1965: 1. Print.
8 “Needs Outlined for Courthouse In Space Study” The Muncie Evening Press [Muncie] July 12, 1966: 1. Print.
9 “That New Cornerstone Is a Milestone, Too” The Muncie Evening Press [Muncie] October 25, 1968: 5. Print.
10 “Justice” The Muncie Star [Muncie] April 19, 1992: 14. Print.
