I’ve been taking photos of historic courthouses for almost a decade. “You’ve been going to courthouses for so long that they’re starting to build new ones,” my brother once exclaimed. He was kidding, but the North Porter County Government Center, a superior courthouse in Portage, says that he was right! The building was an active construction zone during my visit.
I started my project to take photos of every historic courthouse in Indiana in 2014. I was twenty-three, and I didn’t plan ahead or bother with any research. My lack of preparedness meant I didn’t realize that some counties feature more than one active courthouse! I didn’t know that many counties, especially up north, provided superior courthouses to provide additional services to citizens outside of the county seat. Nonetheless, that’s what eventually led me to Portage.
Beyond my misunderstanding, many of Indiana’s superior courthouses are modern. They’re outside the scope of my interests, so I skipped them. Eventually, I decided to go back and take photos. Most are forty years old, which puts them close to historical status in the eyes of the National Register of Historic Places. Maybe we’ll build new justice centers out of 3D printed cardboard and algae by the time the North Porter County Government Center turns fifty! I’ll have the last laugh when historians cite this post in their nominating forms.
The historic Porter County Courthouse sits in Valparaiso. A city of about 34,000 people, Valpo is the seat of Porter County. Portage is slightly larger, but it wasn’t founded until 1959. That year, three older communities -McCool, Crisman, and Garyton- elected to join forces. Although those towns were barely dots on the map, people flocked to the area from nearby Gary, which contributed to a massive growth in population1.
According to the census, 2,116 people lived in Portage in 1950. In a decade, that number grew by 458% to 11,822. The city’s population reached 19,127 in 19702! Ten years later, officials decided to build a government annex since Valparaiso’s aging courthouse was out of room after a 1934 fire necessitated the removal of its third floor3.
Commissioners hired architect Robert Gerometta to design the new superior courthouse in Portage. More of a builder than an architect, Gerometta oversaw projects like Portage’s Willow Creek Middle School and his most impressive work, the Holy Angels Cathedral in Gary4.
Gerometta’s satellite courthouse in Portage was designed to hold court facilities and branches of the welfare department, along with offices for the prosecutor, probation, extension service, clerk, treasurer, assessor, and county health department. Overall, the one-story, elbow-shaped brick structure with a copper roof cost $1.5 million.
Officials and employees moved in during July 19806. Three years later, a prisoner escaped the courthouse by running free through an unlocked door when a probation officer left the room. County police found his jail uniform on the north side of Airport Road after a break-in and theft of a “western-style shirt”, some cash, and a pair of pants at a local business7.
The next thirty years were relatively drama-free until 2013, when county officials decided to contribute to developing a new downtown Portage by moving the courthouse to a larger building there. The structure had begun to deteriorate, but the plan fell apart.
Officials finally freed up room in the courthouse when they agreed to move the county health department to a nearby annex on the campus of the Porter Regional Hospital next door8. Eventually, they expanded the superior courthouse and added a new 12,000-square foot complex to house the county’s health department. When I was there three years ago, early voters were flocked around the new building, waiting to get in.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t see much during my visit to the construction site. The existing building, now finished, features a secure parking lot for officials, a sally port for the transfer of criminals, and a new interior9. I haven’t been back to look at it yet. Nevertheless, my photos are interesting, at least to me, because they show active courthouse construction. I have been taking pictures of courthouses for so long that new ones are being built!
TL;DR
Porter County (168,041, 9/92)
Valparaiso (36,806)
Built: 1980, expanded 2020
Cost: $$1.5 million ($4.4 million in 2016)
Architect: Robert Gerometta
Style: Modern
Courthouse Square: No square
Height: 1 story
Current Use: County offices and courts
Photographed: 5/28/20
Sources Cited
1 Sawochka, Bruce. “Portage in Three Stages of its Growth.” Steel Shavings Volume 20. 1991. Web. Retrieved 5/29/20.
2 “U.S. Census.”United States Census Bureau. Web. Retrieved 5/29/20.
3 Enyart, David. “Porter County” Indiana County Courthouse Histories. ACPL Genealogy Center, 2010-2018. Web. Retrieved 5/29/20.
4 “Robert Gerometta constructed many impressive landmarks” The Times. Feb 3 2006. Web. Retrieved 5/30/20.
5 “County construction sees beginning, end” Vidette-Messenger of Porter County [Valparaiso]. June 3, 1980. Page 2. Print.
6 “Government moves north” Vidette-Messenger of Porter County [Valparaiso]. July 19, 1980.
7 “Prisoner sought after escape from complex” Vedette-Messenger. Sept 9, 1983. Page 11. Print.
8 “County may sell Portage complex” The Times. June 7 201`3. Page A1. Print.
9 “North Porter County government building project begins” The Times. October 23, 2018. Web. Retrieved 5/30/20.
