Greenville, Ohio -population 13,000 or so- is an hour from my hometown of Muncie. It sits about 20 minutes into Ohio on State Road 571, a continuation of IN-28, and it’s where I decided to go first on my first courthouse trip in Ohio. Locals of my parents’ generation know the city as the home of the Triangle, a club and dance hall where they could get three-two brew, but I’d barely ever been to the place. I was twenty-seven before I saw the courthouse there.
Greenville’s extant courthouse was not Darke County’s first. The county was organized in 1817. Seven years later, its first permanent courthouse was completed by John Craig for $5251. The modest, wood-frame building served for nine years before the county outgrew it. Fortunately, the structure found a second life as a business before becoming a home. By 1887, the first Darke County Courthouse stood on Third Street next to Greenville’s Odd Fellows Hall2. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any trace of the building today.
Darke County’s second courthouse was erected at the center of Greenville’s public square in 1833. Built by James Craig for $2,490, the courthouse was typical of the era: two stories, the brick structure featured a hipped roof surmounted by a cupola. Much to the commissioners’ chagrin, Craig exceeded his budget by $34.63 when he supplied pine shingles instead of oak3. Fortunately, the structure lasted much longer than its predecessor.
John F. Kennedy once said that the time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining4. If so, I bet there was nary a cloud in the sky over Darke County in 1870 when officials determined that Main Street was lagging as Greenville’s primary thoroughfare. They quickly decided to acquire land on South Broadway Street for a new courthouse, then built an Italianate jail and sheriff’s residence nearby.
Work on the current building -an Edwin May design- happened pretty quickly beginning in 1873. May was a prolific architect of Hoosier courthouses for nearly thirty years, drawing up plans for nine of them along with the Indiana State House5. Although most of his Indiana buildings have been demolished or substantially altered over the years, the Darke County Courthouse remains pretty close to his original intent.
It’s a grand building, “Corinthian with American treatment” in style and “an ornament to the city and an honor to the county6” upon its dedication on August 3, 1874. Others describe the building as Italianate and Renaissance7, though I’d venture to suggest an obvious Second-Empire influence as well.
The courthouse stands three blocks south of Greenville’s Lancaster Square and was designed with an interior that put consideration towards public convenience. A large corridor separates offices for the county commissioners, auditor, and treasurer to the right; along with rooms for the recorder, probate judge, and probate court to the left. Twisting stairs on either side provided access to the sheriff, clerk, and courtroom on the second floor, while the third floor contained offices for the county surveyor and prosecutor.
The exterior of the building is Buena Vista sandstone and takes the shape of a big rectangle with central projections on three sides. Each features Corinthian pilasters on rusticated bases. From the front, textured blocks frame the main entrance, which provides support to a stone balcony on the building’s second floor.
Apparently, the building’s cornice, brackets, and eaves were designed to mirror those of the 1870 sheriff’s home and jail next door. Above a shallow, heavily-bracketed pediment, a statue of justice rises in front of a squat, mansard roof that provides foundation for the building’s tower, said to reach 160 feet8.
The belfry is the courthouse’s primary feature. One period assessment went a little overboard in describing it, calling it “a fine tower, in which is contained a clock that is nearly perfect in construction as modern science and artistic skill can produce. Whether borne upon the ear in the hours of night, or calling the industrious populace to resume or cease from toil, by day, the musical, measured strokes which knell the passing hours, teach a constant lesson of punctuality, diligence and transient existence9.”
Unfortunately, the clock tower was removed in 1973 after a portion of its gutter fell to the street. Although many residents wanted to demolish the courthouse entirely, a grassroots group created a Project Dome Committee as part of the county’s bicentennial effort to replace the clock tower10. Eight years later, on July 2, 1983, a helicopter placed a replica tower onto new supports, just seven years after the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places without it.
That’s a huge win! Replacement tower or not, the building remains a vital part of Darke County’s identity as it towers over the rest of Greenville. Whether you’re in town for a Maid-Rite burger, the Annie Oakley festival, or KitchenAid, I suggest you swing by the courthouse. It’s not much like any of them found around these parts!
TL;DR
Darke County (pop. 51,113, 48/88)
Eaton (pop. 12,694).
Built: 1874
Cost: $170,000 ($3.66 million in 2016)
Architect: Edwin May
Style: Second Empire/Italianate/Corinthian
Courthouse Square: Shelbyville Square
Height: 160 feet
Current Use: County offices and courts
Photographed: 7/1/18
Sources Cited
1 Deacon, J. “Darke County”. American Courthouses. 2008. Web. Retrieved July 7, 2024.2 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Greenville, Darke County, Ohio (1887). Sanborn Map Company. Web. Retrieved July 7, 2024.3 “The History of Darke County, Ohio” W.H. Beers & Co [Chicago]. 1880. Print.
4 Kennedy, J.F. “State of the Union Address”. Washington, D.C. January 11, 1962. Web. Retrieved 10/19/20.
5 Enyart, David. “Architectrs” Indiana County Courthouse Histories. ACPL Genealogy Center, 2010-2018. Web. 10/19/20.
6 The History of Darke County, Ohio (1880). W,.H. Beers & Co. [Chicago]. Book.
7 “Darke County Courthouse” The Supreme Court of Ohio & The Ohio Judicial System [Columbus]. Web. Retrieved 10/19/20.
8 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map- Greenville, Ohio. 1920. Sanborn Fire Insurance Company. Library of Congress. Web. Retrieved 10/19/20.
9 (See footnote 6).
10 Thrane, Susan W., Patterson, B., & Patterson, T. “County Courthouses of Ohio” Indiana University Press [Bloomington]. November 1, 2000. Print.
