In the early 1800s, a young man named Rutherford B. Hayes began a journey that would lead him to the pinnacle of American power from the quiet town of Delaware, Ohio. In 1870, Hayes was elected Governor of Ohio. That’s the year that Delaware County’s courthouse was completed1. The building is living history!
The future President Hayes was born in 1822, fourteen years after Delaware County, Ohio was founded. Local officials initially established a seat of government at Berkshire, and the first courthouse there was built in 1820. Early county documents described the structure as a “good, well-burnt brick [building] forty feet by thirty-eight square,” but O.L. Baskin’s 1880 county history cautioned that “we leave the reader to conjecture whether the bricks were to be of that size, or the building2.” You’ve gotta love courthouse humor- it’s not easy to come by!
Fifty years is a lot of time to wring out of an early courthouse! Nevertheless, officials in Delaware managed to keep it in usable condition long after Hayes left the area to open a law office in Cincinnati. As the years wore on, Hayes joined the 23rd Regiment of Ohio Volunteer Infantry where he served over another future president, William McKinley3.
After the Civil War, Hayes was elected as U.S. Representative before becoming governor the year the courthouse was built. Contemporaneously described as “not magnificently extravagant,” but a “neat and tasty structure4,” the building’s actually one of the most cut-and-dried examples of Italianate architecture I’ve seen in a midwestern courthouse.
A few features make it so: first is its roofline, which features a prominent, bracketed cornice. Its paired, round-arched windows with hood molds are also hallmarks of the Italianate mode, as is the building’s use of red brick and iron cresting that surmounts a strange, rectangular cupola that rises from the courthouse’s hipped roof.
The cupola, six bays long by two wide, is capped by a second, more traditional version. A gilded allegorical statue of justice tops the whole thing. Despite its appointments, the courthouse isn’t very tall. It sits a few blocks north of central downtown Delaware, so the statue acts as an advertisement for people on the beaten path.
In 1845, Hayes returned home after watching Delaware’s citizens celebrate George Washington’s birthday. “The filth and noise of the crowded streets,” he wrote, “soon destroy the elasticity of health which belongs to the country boy5.” I wonder what he would make of his hometown today, which has grown from 369 people recorded in the 1820 United States Census to about 41,000 as part of the Columbus-Marion-Chillicothe Combined Statistical Area. Today, more than two million people live there as Columbus has expanded northwest!
Despite the growth, I think Hayes might find himself at home in modern downtown Delaware, even if he’d be on the wrong side of two hundred years old. Sandusky Street retains much of its historic character- it’s stuffed with old buildings, and the 1870 courthouse still sits prominently at the southwestern corner of Sandusky and Central Avenue. These days, it’s surrounded by Victorian structures that once housed a confectionary, the county jail, and a grocery with a third-story fraternal hall6.
When I visited in 2019, the courthouse was also surrounded by caution tape and construction equipment. Vacated several years earlier, it was undergoing a massive, $9.1 million renovation to prepare it to house the county’s veterans service commission, county commissioners, and the county’s human resources department7. A new courthouse just east of the old building opened up in 2017.
Delaware County’s new courthouse was designed by Silling Architects of Charleston, West Virginia. I think it resembles a small, modern hospital or a new health sciences building at a local university. Facing east, the 166,000 square-foot structure is three stories tall and features brick, glass, and concrete. Though the roofline of the modern courthouse is mostly flat, its west face features a peaked tower and a projecting window pavilion that measures four bays wide.
I’m glad that Delaware County’s third courthouse wasn’t done up in an overwrought New Urbanist style, and the side of the building that faces its predecessor is less modern in appearance than its entrance. That was an intentional design choice: according to Silling Architects of Charleston, West Virginia, the building was designed with input from Delaware’s local historic preservation committee and zoning commission8.
The architects call Delaware County’s new courthouse “an elegantly meshed contextual nod to the Italianate fabric of historic Delaware while stepping into a modernized composition of progressive materials and forms on the exterior9.” I love inspired, modern architecture, but Silling made the right call: a series of staggered curtain walls and mixed materials would look bizarre in this setting.
The Delaware County Commissioners moved into the 1870 courthouse once the renovation was completed in 2021. Joining them were the county’s human resources and economic development departments and the Delaware County Veterans Service Commission. Although the project modernized the building’s interior, it also paid tribute to its history: workers uncovered the top of a fifteen-foot stained glass window, and they retained other features like an original safe, stonework on the ground floor, railings, and original fireplaces9.
It’s fitting that the repurposed courthouse, built when Rutherford B. Hayes was elected governor, still sits in his hometown with a renewed mission. When he ascended to the presidency in 1877, Hayes became the first commander-in-chief to have graduated from law school! Beyond that, Hayes advocated for education reform, believing education was crucial for national unity and progress.
Rutherford B. Hayes died in 1893, but he would be pleased with the continued use of the courthouse. Through its extensive renovation, officials have ensured that it will continue to add to the integrity and growth of Hayes’ old stomping grounds.
TL;DR
Historic Delaware County Courthouse
Delaware County (pop. 209,177, 14/88)
Delaware (pop. 40,568)
Built: 1870
Cost: $70,000 (1.39 million today)
Architect: Robert N. Jones
Style: Italianate
Courthouse Square: Shelbyville Square
Height: 2.5 stories
Current Use: County offices
Photographed: 11/2/19
Delaware County Courthouse
Built: 2017
Cost: $39.3 million
Architect: Silling Architects
Style: Postmodern
Courthouse Square: No square
Height: 3 stories
Current Use: County offices and courts
Photographed: 11/2/19
Sources Cited
1 Vincent, Keith. Courthouse History. Web. Retrieved 2/12/21.
2 “History of Delaware County, Ohio” O.L. Baskin & Company [Chicago]. 1880. Print.
3 Armstrong, William H. “Major McKinley: William McKinley and the Civil War.” The Kent State University Press. [Kent[. 2000. Print.
4 (See footnote 1).
5 “Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes” Volume I. The Ohio State Archeological and Historical Society [Columbus]. 1922. Print.
6 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map- Delaware, Ohio. 1890. Sanborn Fire Insurance Company. Library of Congress. Web. Retrieved 2/13/21.
7 “Historic Courthouse Renovation” Delaware County, Ohio [Delaware]. Web. Retrieved 2/13/21.
8 “Delaware County Courthouse” Silling Architects [Charleston]. 2017. Web. Retrieved 2/13/21.
9 Restored County Courthouse (2020, November 11). The Delaware County Historical Society. Web. Retrieved September 10, 2023.
