The works of beloved poet James Whitcomb Riley -the folksy Hoosier who wrote “Little Orphan Annie,” “The Raggedy Man,” and “When the Frost is on the Punkin”- are considered by many to be timeless classics. As Greenfield’s favorite son, a statue of Riley stands ready to give his next reading in front of the monumental Hancock County Courthouse.
Hancock County was twenty-one years old when its best-known resident was born in 1849. A year after the county was formed, Jared Chapman built its first courthouse, a two-story log building, for $1951. A 40 x 40 brick courthouse followed in 1834. Eleven years later, two 20 x 28 brick wings were added by builder Nathan Crawford2.
At first, Greenfield wasn’t much beyond a smattering of retail and homes around the courthouse square. During the 1850s and 1860s, travel increased along the National Road. Officials realized they needed a new courthouse to keep up with the increasing needs of the county. They hired Edwin May, the architect behind nine Hoosier courthouses, to design a replacement in 1856.
May’s courthouse was a two-story Greek Revival building with pilasters and a heavy belfry. The massive structure soon established the town square as the focal point of the community, and commercial activity continued to shift towards Main Street. Greenfield and Hancock County found new prosperity after natural gas was discovered in 1887. The town expanded like never before3.
James Whitcomb Riley’s prominence was growing, too as he started giving reading tours around Indiana. In 1880, Riley was invited to perform at Asbury University, after which he signed a ten-year contract to present speeches across the country4. Soon after, his hometown commissioners hired Fort Wayne architects Wing & Mahurin to design a building more suitable for the county’s newfound prominence. Plans for the $242,600 structure were accepted in October 1895, a cornerstone was placed in September 1896, and officials took possession of their new courthouse on January 1, 1898.
Wing & Mahurin was a new firm, but George Wing and Marshall Mahurin both had impressive resumes. Both worked for T.J. Tolan before they defected to form their own studio. Along with the courthouse in Greenfield, the duo completed the Starke County Courthouse in Knox before assisting Tolan’s son Brentwood with the incomparable Allen County Courthouse in Fort Wayne.
Despite their lack of experience, Wing & Mahurin pulled out all the stops in Greenfield. The courthouse is essentially symmetrical. Each of the building’s faces has central bays accentuated with two-story piers and finials, a pointed wall dormer, large towers, and stone string courses. The north elevation is the primary entrance. Designed around several gabled blocks, it features two round towers that frame a central roof projection. A large entryway stands ahead of the main structure and connects the two towers.
The south face is similar but lacks the rounded towers. Instead, it features a large entablature across the peak of the doorway arch, along with square chimneys that flank the central bay. The east and west elevations are identical and carry several motifs from the other two sides. Grotesques in the form of dogs, monkeys, and other animals look down from near the building’s apex5, but the crowning feature of the courthouse is its 181-foot clock tower capped with a high, hipped roof.
Wing & Mahurin also designed another building in downtown Greenfield, the city’s old high school. Erected in 1895, the building featured a four-story tower of its own. A replacement was built in 1926, but the original school was used as an elementary until 1981. A fire in 1985 destroyed the entire structure aside from its entrance arch6, which was saved and incorporated into the main offices of Greenfield-Central School Corporation.
Fortunately, there’s no indication that the Hancock County Courthouse will suffer a similar fate. In 1996, the community celebrated the building’s 100th anniversary with a gala event that rededicated the cornerstone, installed a bust of John Hancock, and opened a century-old time capsule7.
Nearly thirty years later, residents of Hancock County have much to be proud of well into the building’s second century. It remains the ninth-tallest courthouse in the state, and officials have taken good care of it. The building’s murals and glass dome were restored in the 1990s8, and the clock received eight new custom aluminum hands and an electric motor in 20199.
I think James Whitcomb Riley would be proud to see the courthouse as it stands today. His poems reflected the values and sentiments of small-town America, echoing the voices of the people who frequented the courthouse. As visitors pass through the building’s doors, they might find themselves transported to a time when Riley’s words echoed through its halls, forever intertwined with the fabric of Hancock County.
TL;DR
Hancock County (pop. 71,575, 22/92)
Greenfield (pop. 21,249)
21/92 photographed
Built: 1897
Cost: $242,600 ($6.97 million in 2016)
Architect: Wing & Mahurin
Style: Romanesque
Courthouse Square: Shelbyville Square
Height: 181 feet
Current use: Courts and some county offices
Photographed: 8/18/15 and 3/13/16
Sources Cited
1 Enyart, David. “Hancock County” Indiana County Courthouse Histories. ACPL Genealogy Center, 2010-2018. Web. Retrieved 1/4/20.
2 (See footnote 1).
3 National Register of Historic Places, Greenfield Courthouse Square Historic District, Greenfield, Hancock County, Indiana, National Register # 85000455.
4 Crowder, Richard. Those Innocent Years. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Company. [Indianapolis] 1957. Print.
5 Indiana Landmarks (2013). Hancock County. Indianapolis. Indiana Landmarks. Web. Retrieved 1/7/20.
6 Greenfield Educational History – May 2012. City of Greenfield Indiana. 2019-20. Web. Retrieved 1/7/19.
7 Durham, A. (1996, September 19). Courthouse celebration set for Sunday. The Greenfield Daily Reporter. p. 1.
8 (See footnote 7).
9 Middelkamp, Ben. “Courthouse clock gets its new hands” The Daily Reporter [Greenfield]. 3/9/19. Web. Retrieved 1/7/19.
