From arch bridges to art deco theaters and impressive academic institutions, Coles County, Illinois, is home to twenty-one properties and districts enshrined in the National Register of Historic Places. They’re all intriguing sites, but the 125-year-old Coles County Courthouse rises above the rest.
Benjamin Parker settled in what later became Charleston, Illinois, in 1826. Coles County was formed from parts of Edgar and Clark Counties in 18301. Charleston was platted the following year after Parker and Charles Morton donated twenty lots. The first courthouse, a clapboard-sided log cabin with a sawdust floor, was erected in 1831. A simple brick structure replaced it in 18352.
The first European settlers in Coles County mostly hailed from New England and upstate New York3. Its fertile farmland lured people in from even closer, too. In 1830, Thomas Lincoln sold his Indiana homestead to move about ten miles south of Charleston. His twenty-two-year-old son Abraham helped him relocate before continuing on to Sangamon County4.
Although he never lived there, Abraham Lincoln spent considerable time practicing law at the 1835 Coles County Courthouse in Charleston5. In Lincoln’s legal days, the building was a two-story structure with arched entrances, a hipped roof, and a two-tiered cupola. The courthouse was enlarged with a portico and wing in 1858, just a year before Lincoln made his last visit to Charleston6.
The 1866 addition of another wing restored the building’s symmetry7, but the entire structure had badly aged by the time the 1890s rolled around. Around 1898, officials announced a plan to repair the courthouse. Unfortunately for taxpayers, “repairing” the old building meant razing it and building anew8! Fourteen years later, commissioners in nearby Vermillion County pulled their own version of the trick.
Taxpayers were livid at the heel turn, but the third Coles County Courthouse was completed despite their many protests. Architect C.W. Rapp of Chicago was responsible for the building’s Richardson Romanesque design, which features rounded arches, soaring towers, decorative detailing, and massive stone walls.
Standing in the center of Charleston, the bulk of the Coles County Courthouses rises 3.5 stories tall. The building features stone sourced from quarries on the nearby Embarras River, but accents like its lintels and arches were carved from Bedford limestone9. The structure’s square footprint is broken up by gabled entry pavilions and projecting corners with pyramidal roofs and dormers. Arcaded porches obscure the main entryways.
I love a good clock tower, and the Coles County Courthouse has an interesting one. Rising 115 feet above a complex-hipped roof10, its narrow nature is unlike any other Richardson Romanesque tower I’ve seen on a courthouse! It almost looks like a candle sticking out from a birthday cake. I doubt this phrase was used back in C.W. Rapp’s day, but architects know the quotient between the height and width of a building as its slenderness ratio.
Another thing I noticed about the courthouse was C.W. Rapp’s use of forced perspective to make the building look taller than it really is. The technique manipulates the perception of scale to create an illusion of depth and distance. Disney World is famous for its use of this approach. At the Coles County Courthouse, the windows get smaller the higher they are. The forced perspective makes it really seem to loom from up close!
More than a hundred years after it was built, the exterior of the Coles County Courthouse remained similar to C.W. Rapp’s original intent when I visited four years ago. Most of the alterations had to do with windows. Between 1966 and 1969, aluminum windows replaced the building’s originals. Eventually, windows in the attic story were closed by panels11.
After my visit, officials in Coles County contacted a company called Centrica to restore the building’s windows. By fabricating more than 380 new panels, Centrica reopened spaces that were closed off by plywood boards for more than fifty years! It’s hard to believe, but the Coles County Courthouse looks even better today than when I took photos of it four years ago.
I’ve spent the past ten years driving to and exploring midwestern courthouses. You’d think I’d be accustomed to it by now, but the sheer diversity in architectural styles, even within neighboring counties, still astounds me. I’ve only been to a handful of courthouses in Illinois, but we’ve already talked about their Neoclassical, Italian Renaissance, Classical Revival, and -now- Richardson Romanesque modes. I don’t make it to Illinois that often, but I’m eager to see what the rest of it has in store!
TL:DR
Coles County (pop. 47,076, 31/102)
Charleston (pop. 17,119)
4/102 photographed
Built: 1899
Cost: Unknown
Architect: C.W. Rapp
Style: Richardson Romanesque
Courthouse Square: Shelbyville square
Height: 115 feet
Current Use: County offices and courts
Photographed 11/7/2020
Sources Cited
1 Gannett, H. (1905). The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States. U.S. Government Printing Office [Washington, D.C.]. Book.
2 The History of Coles County, Illinois (1879). Wm. Le Baron, Jr., & Co [Chicago]. Book.
3 (See footnote 2).
4 Donald, D.H. (1995). Lincoln. Simon & Schuster [New York]. Book.
5 Coleman, C.H. (1955). Abraham Lincoln and Coles County, Illinois. Scarecrow Press [New Brunswick]. Book.
6 Weiser, D. (2009). Illinois Courthouses: An Illustrated History. The Donning Company [Virginia Beach]. Book.
7 Vincent, K. (2016). Courthouse History. Web. Retrieved April 20, 2024.
8 (See footnote 6).
9 National Register of Historic Places, Coles County Courthouse, Charleston, Coles County, Illinois, National Register # 78001118.
10 (1910) Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Charleston, Coles County, Illinois. Sanborn Map Company. Web. Retrieved April 20, 2024.
11 (See footnote 9).
12 Coles County accomplishes historic restoration of its Courthouse windows with an Energy Savings Performance Contract (n.d.). Centrica Business Solutions. Web. Retrieved April 20, 2024.
