One of my favorite things about historic courthouses is the sense of permanence they project. Aside from the materials used to erect them, the impression of stability many courthouses provide has a lot to do with the institutional ideals they were built to reflect. Of course, some invoke a sense of durability more than others. The Greene County Courthouse in Xenia, Ohio, is a perfect example. It withstood an F5 tornado!
I’ve only participated in one tornado over my thirty-two years. It was on June 6, 2010, and I was back from college for the summer running the Subway I’d worked at in high school. It was a dead Sunday, but all of a sudden -as if Al Roker flicked a switch- the sky darkened, the wind began to howl, and the SRN-2001 in the field just behind us wound up and wailed to life. Tornado!
Legend holds that my hometown of Muncie is impervious to twisters due to how the river curves through the city1. It’s not true, as the EF-1 tornado that smacked into the historic Muncie Central Fieldhouse in 2017 would gladly attest if given the opportunity. Nevertheless, Muncie’s been very lucky over the years, even avoiding any damage the 1974 super outbreak wreaked across the midwest. Other cities weren’t so fortunate: near Lafayette, the White County Courthouse in Monticello was completely destroyed.
The super outbreak was the second-largest tornado epidemic ever recorded in a single 24-hour period. From April 3, 1974, through the 4th, 148 tornados sprung up in 13 midwestern states and Ontario, killing 319 people, injuring nearly 5,500 more, and causing $4.6 billion in damages adjusted for inflation2. One of the storms -an F5- tore through Xenia and ruined the city. 1,400 buildings were destroyed, 1,300 people were injured, and thirty-three residents lost their lives3.
Although it sustained damage to its roof, cornices, clock faces, and gargoyles, the Greene County Courthouse somehow survived the storm. Remarkably, the 18×10 stained glass window next to the judge’s bench in the courtroom even managed to stay in one piece thanks to the protection of a simple storm window4!
The Greene County Courthouse was a hearty building. Back in the 1890s, architects and county commissioners alike loved the sturdy appearance of Richardson Romanesque architecture because of its heavy stone blocks, recessed entrances, square clock towers, and fortresslike massing. If you’ve ever seen a courthouse that reminds you of a castle, you’ve seen a Richardson Romanesque model!
Xenia’s courthouse surviving a tornado justifies some of the bombast often used to describe structures erected in that style. I doubt that any of its predecessors would have been so lucky, especially since the first courthouse in Greene County was built of logs! We all know that houses of sticks -just like houses of straw- are no match for any manner of huffing or puffing.
Greene County’s first courts were held at a log tavern in Beaver Creek Township. Although there were no trials scheduled on its first day of business, the proprietor had “an ample supply of ardent spirits of various degrees of intoxicating potency on hand,” and consuming them led to enough fights to fill the burgeoning court’s docket for the next several days5.
Xenia received its first courthouse -a brick building measuring forty feet square and twenty-eight feet tall- sometime before 1809. Four years after it was replaced in 1842, someone ventured to the site of the first courthouse -the tavern- to make a pen drawing of the building. After trudging through the brush, the would-be artist was confronted by the new owner’s pet black bear tied to one of its corners6!
The third Greene County Courthouse was Greek Revival, and it lasted for nearly sixty years before being replaced by the current structure. Although it was demolished, its Ionic columns were moved to Woodland Cemetery, and they can still be seen at its entrance on Dayton Avenue today.
County commissioners hired Samuel Hannaford to design the fourth courthouse. Completed in 1902, the massive structure is the one that survived the tornado seventy-two years later. It’s similar to Hannaford’s design for Cincinnati’s City Hall7, but he designed courthouses in Vigo County, Indiana, and Washington and Monroe counties in Ohio, that are wildly different. That said, the Greene County Courthouse is the only example to have survived a tornado. That’s part of what makes it exceptional.
I too, survived a tornado, at least a little one. First, the power went out. I reasoned that Subway’s vault-like walk-in freezer would be the safest place to be during a twister, but my frontal cortex hadn’t fully developed and it was cold in there. I decided that the best alternative was to go out the back door and see what was happening. As I did, I heard a sucking noise and saw a dark funnel cloud ascend into the sky. That’s it! Later I read that it’d officially been rated as an F0 and managed to touch down again about eleven miles south.
It’s a scary fact of life in the Midwest that tornados come and go. Some buildings crumple, while others remain standing. My own story is weak, but the Greene County Courthouse sure stood up to a big one in a manner of resilience uncommon to many modern buildings, and we should celebrate its fortitude. I fell in love with courthouses partially due to their monumental permanence, and there isn’t one better than Greene County’s to drive that importance home for me. From its aesthetics to its strength, the courthouse is an extraordinary building.
TL;DR
Greene County (pop. 117,671, 148/88)
Xenia (pop. 26,534).
Built: 1902
Cost: $191,764.50 ($5.81 million today)
Architect: Samuel Hannaford
Style: Richardson Romanesque
Courthouse Square: Shelbyville Square
Height: 145 feet
Current use: Courts and some county offices
Photographed: 11/2/2019
Sources Cited
1 Fittes, Emma Kate. “Did a legend save Muncie from tornadoes?” The Star Press [Muncie]. August 25, 2016. Web. Retrieved 2/18/21.
2 Fujita, T. Theodore; Abbey, Jr., Robert F. “The Thunderstorm in Human Affairs” University of Oklahoma Press [Norman]. 1983. Print.
3 Bruce, Jeff. “That Deadly Day” The Dayton Daily News [Dayton]. April 1, 2004. 1. Print.
4 Thrane, Susan W., Patterson, B., & Patterson, T. “County Courthouses of Ohio” Indiana University Press [Bloomington]. November 1, 2000. Print.
5 “Ohio County Courthouses: Seats of Justice – Greene County” The Ohio Channel [Columbus]. December 29, 2014. Web. Retrieved 2/17/21.
6 Broadstone, Michael A. “History of Greene County, Ohio: Its People, Industries, and Institutions” B.F. Bowen & Company [Indianapolis]. 1918. Print.
7 “American Art Annual, Volume 9” MacMillan Company [New York]. 1911. Print.
I remember reading about Xenia in the news. My only near-tornado experience was at age 5 as my family drove from Celina OH to Fort Wayne about 15 minutes ahead of the storms that flattened much of Wilshire and Rockford OH the evening of Palm Sunday, 1965.