Southern Indiana’s Greene County Courthouse is one of the state’s most unique government buildings, a study of similarities and differences. Is the building old or modern? The answer is a resounding yes.
Greene County was formed in 1821 out of Indiana’s unincorporated territory and nearby Sullivan County. It took its name from General Nathaneal Greene, a commander in the American Revolutionary War1. The community’s first courts met in Thomas Bradford’s home for two years until officials established the town of Burlington as the county seat2.
In 1822, officials built a 1.5-story log courthouse in Burlington for $2503. Unfortunately, they struggled to find a good water supply from the get-go. Nearly everyone in town worked in vain to dig a well4! In 1824, officials gave up and moved to Bloomfield.
Greene County’s first courthouse in Bloomfield was another log building about twice the size of the one in Burlington5. Erected on the site of a public spring donated to help wrest the county seat away6, the courthouse required special reinforcements “so as to prevent the hogs from disturbing the court or any other public business7.”
It served until 1839 when contractor Andrew Downing completed a 50×50 foot brick courthouse after the original builder skipped town with his $1000 advance8! To this day, part of it still exists. Believe it or not, the cupola of Greene County’s third courthouse still stands as a lawn ornament on the north side of Bloomfield.
By the 1880s, roaming livestock was no longer a concern when designing county infrastructure. The old courthouse had outlived its usefulness, so commissioners hired George Bunting to draw plans for a replacement. Widely known for his architectural abilities, Bunting already had courthouses in Crawfordsville, Washington, Franklin, Frankfort, and Anderson under his belt by the time he designed Bloomfield’s.
The fourth Greene County Courthouse was completed in 1885. The $60,800 structure measured 112 by 77 feet on a traditional Shelbyville square. Originally, it featured a central entry projection at its north-facing front and pyramidal turrets on each corner. Interestingly, the building’s masonry was laid in stretcher bond that used black bricks as a belt course9. Crowned by a bell tower that featured a clock under a pyramidal roof, the building was a landmark in Greene County for nearly seventy years.
Unfortunately, the courthouse began to deteriorate. Bricks fell from its northeastern turret in 1952 before five feet of its parapet collapsed. Commissioners responded by hiring architect J.C. Bixby of Vincennes to remove its turrets, hipped roof, and third floor. The project also decapitated the building’s best feature -its clock tower- and refaced what remained with limestone10.
Unfortunately, there was more to the renovation: iron beams were added to the attic to strengthen the structure, and the interior of the remodeled courthouse was remodeled into the worst type of mid-century middle school aesthetic with dropped ceilings, acoustic tiles, and fluorescent lights. The project was completed in 195411. Little remained of George Bunting’s initial vision.
Despite that, what was left of Bunting’s Greene County Courthouse served more than forty more years before officials decided to expand it with a four-story addition, a secure entrance, an elevator, new offices, and three more courtrooms in 2001. Unfortunately, the project was complicated by that pesky public spring from the 1820s. It’d long since been covered up, but still made the soil underneath the courthouse wet, sandy, and unstable.
Against the weight of heavy construction equipment, the dirt gave way and caused the building to move. Huge cracks in its brick facade emerged when an entire staircase shifted12! It took eighteen months for engineers to determine a path forward, but construction resumed in 2003. Project managers solved the problem with sixty-four metal tie rods to hold the building together and lots and lots of epoxy to fill in cracks in the brickwork13.
To my eye, the 2001-2003 addition looks like the health sciences building at a local university, but it doesn’t detract from what’s left of George Bunting’s neutered courthouse. In fact, it’s more sympathetic than it appears at first glance. Like the original structure, the expansion sits on a raised limestone basement. Other stone accents abound around the building’s windows, and the triangular pediment over the entryway reflects motifs seen on the original building’s front door.
Beyond that, a wide parapet at the top of the addition matches the appearance and scale of the building’s truncated clock tower. Overall, the newest parts of the Greene County Courthouse add much-needed functionality and visual interest to downtown Bloomfield, large parts of which are aging and boarded up.
Although I wish a different approach towards renovation could have restored the elderly courthouse to its original appearance, it’s hard to argue with the result. Today, residents of Greene County have the best of both worlds- a historic courthouse to enjoy and a modern courthouse to actually use.
TL;DR
Greene County (pop. 32,177, 51/92)
Bloomfield (pop. 2,385).
Built: 1885. Expanded in 2006.
71/92 photographed.
Cost: $60,800 ($1.62 million in 2016)
Architect: George Bunting
Style: Neoclassical
Courthouse Square: Shelbyville Square
Height: 4 stories
Current Use: County offices and courts
Photographed: 3/27/16
Sources Cited
1 Baker, R. & Carmony, M. (1975). Indiana Place Names. Indiana University Press [Bloomington]. Book.
2 Enyart, David. “Greene County” Indiana County Courthouse Histories. ACPL Genealogy Center, 2010-2018. Web. Retrieved 5/27/2019
3 (See footnote 2).
4 History of Greene and Sullivan Counties, State of Indiana (1884). Goodspeed Bros. & Co. [Chicago]. Book.
5 Deacon, J. “Greene County”. American Courthouses. 2008. Web. Retrieved May 23 2024.
6 Faye L. Flynn, “Peter Van Slyke donated land for Greene County seat.” Bloomfield News nd, in the collection of the Greene County Historical Society.
7 (see footnote 4).
8 (See footnote 2).
9 National Register of Historic Places, Greene County Courthouse, Bloomfield, Greene County, Indiana, National Register # 08000912.
10 Bixby collection as of January 9, 2008. 26 working drawings are noted, along with supplemental materials, specifications, etc.
11 Repairs Planned For Courthouse The Linton Daily Citizen (Linton). February 21, 1954. Print. Page 6.
12 Work resumes on Greene courthouse. The Republic (Columbus) September 5, 2004. Print. Page 9.
13 (See footnote 12).
