The Miami County Courthouse in Troy, Ohio, is one of the Midwest’s most impressive architectural gems. When it was planned, the county had just 36,000 residents- a number so small it’s comparable to annual chainsaw-related emergencies as reported by the CDC! Despite the modest population back then, the courthouse’s grand scale is remarkable. The county’s population has tripled today, but the courthouse remains a true Ohio landmark.
Miami County -named after the Miami Indians, of course- was authorized by the Ohio state legislature in 18071. Troy became the county seat the following year and replaced the town of Staunton. Today Staunton’s essentially part of Troy, located at the corner of Old Staunton Road and OH-202 east of town. Early on, commissioners recognized that Troy’s strategic location on the Great Miami River, as well as along the Miami and Erie Canal and several key early roads, made it a more favorable choice for the county seat2.
In 1807, Miami County’s first court sessions were held at the Staunton home of Peter Felix. The following year, the courts relocated to a Mr. Overfield’s house in Troy. Various other homes served as temporary government buildings until 1811, when a “double house of hewed logs3” was constructed to accommodate the courts and jail.
In 1816, William Barber and Fielding Young built Miami County’s first brick courthouse for $2,745. Twenty-five years later, A.E. Turnbull followed with another at nearly ten times the cost! Unfortunately, Turnbull’s building could no longer serve the growing county by the 1880s, a decade when many midwestern counties replaced their courthouses. Commissioners decided to build anew.
Joseph Yost was called to draw the plans for Miami County’s next courthouse. A prolific architect, Yost was ultimately responsible for nine courthouses in Ohio, including some he designed with his partner Frank Packard. Nevertheless, Yost worked alone when it came to Miami County. Completed in 1885, the grand building features a 185-foot clock tower, raised pediments, corner domes, and statues all along the roofline.
Inside, Yost featured gold-painted cast-iron stairways, a stained glass dome above the courtroom, and ornamental ceilings and arches around the building’s rotunda. The inner dome even features life-sized busts of the races of mankind4! It’s an incredible space, I’ve heard. Alas, I’ve never been inside.
The Miami County Courthouse is a real gem in Ohio’s portfolio. There may be some misanthropic reprobate who hates it, but my sentiment isn’t simple conjecture- it’s the truth! Even though the county erected a fifth courthouse -the three-story Miami County Safety Building designed by Hart-Ruestchle-Hart in 19725– officials have done a wonderful job of preserving their 1885 masterpiece.
The courthouse received extensive renovations in 1982 and 1998 that stripped its domes of their cast iron veneer for repair; replaced the windows with efficient, architecturally-sympathetic copies, and cleaned the building’s limestone walls6. The result is a structure that incongruously manages to look both old and new! The safety building, though modern, is no slouch either. The Brutalist structure faces west and features a recessed entry framed by six massive pillars.
Aesthetically, the old courthouse and the safety building could hardly be further apart. Physically, they stand about a hundred feet away from each other. An attractive plaza built around two pentagonal fountains ties the disparate buildings together. In a nod to Miami County’s history, the southern fountain even features stones from Troy’s 1850 jail! The plaza was rededicated in 2020 after a $3.6 million project repaired ancient tunnels that connected the courthouse to its old power plant across West Water Street7. Although I never noticed one in Indiana, I’ve stumbled across three or four old plants at courthouses in western Ohio.
Troy’s, marked on an 1892 Sanborn fire insurance map as the “County Building,” is a one-story brick structure with a 60-foot chimney that housed boilers used to create steam to heat the courthouse. Presumably, it was placed across the street to minimize damage to the courthouse in case of an accident. Today, the building houses the Miami County Operations and Facilities Department.
Troy, Ohio, is full of hidden gems, but as the 56th most populous city in the state, it might have flown under my radar if not for Marsh Supermarkets. In 1974, a cashier at Marsh made history by scanning the first item with a barcode- a pack of Juicy Fruit gum. Though this groundbreaking moment happened in western Ohio, the concept of barcode scanning quickly spread and revolutionized retail worldwide.
Joseph Yost’s design for the Miami County Courthouse quickly found its way across the state, too- at least to St. Clairsville, where he essentially replicated it for the Belmont County Courthouse. Unfortunately, it misses the historically-minded plaza that seamlessly connects Troy’s courthouse to its more modern surroundings to bridge several generations. The Miami County Courthouse is as great an example of a historic building as you’re likely to find anywhere in Ohio. Here’s hoping it stands for another 140 years.
TL;DR
Miami County (pop. 106,987, 25/88)
Van Wert (pop. 26,132).
Built: 1885
Cost: $400,000 ($10.73 million today)
Architect: Joseph Yost
Style: Beaux Arts
Courthouse Square: Shelbyville Square
Height: 185 feet
Current Use: County offices and courts
Photographed: 4/1/18
Sources Cited
1 “Miami County” Ohio History Central. The Ohio History Connection. Web. Retrieved 12/31/20.
2 “Troy, Ohio” Ohio History Central. The Ohio History Connection. Web. Retrieved 12/31/20.
3 “The History of Miami County, Ohio” W.H. Beers & Co. [Chicago]. 1881. Print.
4 Thrane, Susan W., Patterson, B., & Patterson, T. “County Courthouses of Ohio” Indiana University Press [Bloomington]. November 1, 2000. Print.
5 Deacon, J. “Miami County”. American Courthouses. 2008. Web. Retrieved 1/1/21.
6 “Miami County Courthouse” The Supreme Court of Ohio & The Ohio Judicial System. The Supreme Court of Ohio [Columbus]. Web. Retrieved 1/1/21.
7 Bowman, Nancy. “Miami County shows off new courthouse plaza” Dayton Daily News [Dayton]. October 2, 2020. Web. Retrieved 1/1/21.
That one is beautiful indeed!