A lot of historic courthouses were designed in a style I call “American Exuberance.” In the pioneer days, courthouses functional buildings built without any frills. Influences came flooding in from all over after the Civil War, though, and architects mashed them all up into fanciful concoctions. That’s American Exuberance, and the Van Wert County Courthouse in Ohio is a singular example of it.
The Van Wert County Courthouse is absolutely soaked in ebullience. It’s fun to imagine architects looking over a checklist of desired features with country commissioners in the late 1800s: Italianate quoins with a Second Empire mansard roof? You got it. How about Neoclassical columns with a Beaux Arts dome? Sure! Anything was possible in those halcyon days and, somehow, it all worked.
T.J. Tolan was responsible for its excess. A marble cutter by trade, Tolan jumped into architecture at forty-four years old when he moved from Delphos, Ohio, to the metropolis of Fort Wayne. The courthouse in Van Wert was his first big project, and its brick construction, mansard roof, and square-based domes are all hallmarks of Second Empire architecture.
Two cupolas frame a central tower that rises a hundred and ten feet tall1. Beyond its toppings, the courthouse’s most prominent feature is its eight-foot tall statue of justice that won top prize in a Philadelphia sculpture contest2. It stands in an arched pediment above the building’s recessed front entrance.
The courthouse is colorful, with a dark gray foundation and roof, contrasting stonework, red brick, and gold accents. As described, its architectural elements aren’t all that crazy, but it owes its garish appearance to an outlandish sense of proportion concerning its own features and the size of the buildings surrounding it. The heavy massing of the courthouse gives it the impression of being both top- and front-heavy, sort of like when you see a semi buzzing down the highway without a trailer.
Several factors are responsible. The first is that the building sits close to Main Street without a lawn to buffer it. Secondly, its central tower doesn’t have many setbacks before the colossal lantern at the top. Third, the smaller towers that frame it add a lot of heft to the front of the building. The courthouse isn’t super tall, but each of those traits make it look larger and more imposing than it really is. It almost reminds me of the forced perceptive places like Disney World use.
The building has stood out to me as one of the best in the area ever since I first drove by it one night as a college freshman, and period accounts agree with my assessment. “The present courthouse is a magnificent structure which reflects great credit upon both the town and county,” local historian R. Sutton wrote. “It is situated in a public part of town and is finished with great skill and taste, both outside and within3.”
Others came to the same conclusions. “The Van Wert Court House is as convenient as it is elegant, and an honor to the town and county,” penned the editor of the Kenton Democrat shortly after it was erected. “It is the finest structure in Northwestern Ohio “and we cannot help being a little covetous in the premises4.”
Despite glowing praise and outward appearances, the Van Wert County Courthouse was pretty inexpensive to build. It cost a mere $107,000- just two-thirds the cost of the Darke County Courthouse in Eaton and far less than Tolan’s later designs in Rockville and Warsaw, Indiana5.
The marble-cutter-turned-architect accomplished this through ingenious means: although contrasting stonework is one of the building’s most prominent features, it’s really crimped, cushion-patterned iron! Aside from the foundation, everything that looks like stone -from its belt courses to its tower- is metal.
“The building is remarkable for the free use of sheet metal finish, both upon the exterior and interior, and the cost of fine effect thereby attained at a minimum of cost,” the technologist at New York City’s Industrial Monthly said at the time6. The building wasn’t just ebullient from an aesthetic standpoint, it was innovative in terms of the materials it was built from. That’s American Exuberance!
T.J. Tolan is to be commended for going all out on the Van Wert County Courthouse, his first design. Although his later structures reigned in his wildest impulses, It’s always a treat to go absolutely crazy every once in a while! I’m glad that Tolan, and officials in Van Wert County, did exactly that nearly a hundred and fifty years ago.
TL;DR
Van Wert County (pop. 28,275, 75/88)
Van Wert (pop. 10,680).
Built: 1876
Cost: $107,000 ($2.6 million today)
Architect: T.J. Tolan & Son
Style: Second Empire
Courthouse Square: Shelbyville Square
Height: 110 feet
Current Use: County offices and courts
Photographed: 2/17/18
Sources Cited
1 “Van Wert, Ohio” The Sanborn Map Company [Pelham]. November, 1907.
2 Thrane, Susan W., Patterson, B., & Patterson, T. “County Courthouses of Ohio” Indiana University Press [Bloomington]. November 1, 2000. Print.
3 “History of Van Wert and Mercer Counties, Ohio: With Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men and Pioneers” R. Sutton & Co. [Wapakoneta]. 1882. Print.
4 Wood, Cindy. “County Courthouse: 135 years of history” The Van Wert Independent [Van Wert]. Web. Retrieved 11/17/20.
5 Enyart, David. “Architects” Indiana County Courthouse Histories. ACPL Genealogy Center, 2010-2018. Web. 11/26/20.
6 “Paulding County Courthouse” The Supreme Court of Ohio & The Ohio Judicial System. The Supreme Court of Ohio [Columbus]. Web. Retrieved 11/26/20.
My mother’s mother’s mother is from Van Wert, Ohio. I knew her; she lived until I was about 13. The family story was that she was able to work at Bendix until she was 75, despite the mandatory retirement age being 65, because she had no birth certificate after “the courthouse burned down” and looked young enough that they believed the lie she told about her age.
Well, so much for that family story.
My great grandmother was a character. A holy terror behind the wheel, and for a while she kept a pet alligator. Somewhere around here I have a photo of her with the alligator in her lap.
I’ve seen that photo with the alligator. Definitely not a woman to mess with!!!!
I have been past this place countless times but have never been inside. I always thought it would be a great pattern for those little Christmas snow villages old ladies (meaning ladies my age) put on their mantles.
My stepmom still lives at the extreme edge of the county, about 1 mile in from the Indiana state line. I ate many a meal at Balyeat’s next door and miss that place a lot to this day.
I remember your post about Balyeat’s, and I regret that I never stopped in.
Also, I agree with your assessment for the Christmas villages! Actually, Gibson county’s actually was the basis for one.