With a population of about 10,000, Cadillac, Michigan, is the big city when it comes to my family’s eighty-acre vacation property one county over. I’ve often stopped at Meijer or the Home Depot for a forgotten pillow or tool, but it took nearly thirty years for me to venture further into town and see the Wexford County Courthouse. The building was well worth the wait.
Wexford County dates to 1840, when it was platted and named Kantawaubet. Three years later, it was renamed for Ireland’s County Wexford1. The adjacent Missaukee County was made part of it in 1869, and the western village of Sherman was named county seat. At first, county offices like courts were held in homes. In fact, the first circuit court was held at a log hotel owned by Sylvester Clark. Officials approved $5,000 to build proper county buildings in 1870 and hired William Holdsworth Sr. of Traverse City to design a courthouse2.
Holdsworth’s courthouse consisted of two frame stories, a pitched roof, and a tiny tower. Unfortunately, Sherman’s hold on the title of county seat was tenuous. The same year the courthouse was built, the community of Clam Lake tried to usurp its status! The coup was unsuccessful, and the citizens of Clam Lake were defeated again in 18733.
Meanwhile, a settlement named Manton had been growing in the northeastern part of the county. Another battle to host the county seat soon arose between it, Sherman, and Clam Lake, which was eventually renamed Cadillac4. The populations of Manton and Clam Lake soon surpassed that of Sherman. The two villages joined forces in their opposition to Sherman, and Manton wrested the courthouse away in 1881.
I’ve simplified Wexford County’s early courthouse wars in my retelling, but Cadillac wasn’t done. The community succeeded in adding new townships to Wexford County to swell its ranks, and the county’s nineteenth (nineteenth!) resolution to relocate its seat was passed in 1882. Of all of Michigan’s county’s, Wexford struggled the most to establish a permanent seat.
Cadillac won out and sent a train to Manton’s courthouse the day after the resolution passed. Parking within a hundred feet of the unfinished structure, officials began collecting official documents. The records were loaded within half an hour, but the group were met with opposition when they tried to remove the county’s safes5. Even so, they were greeted as heroes when they finally made it home.
The folks from Cadillac was heralded more after they added several cars to the train and the “First Volunteer Regiment, Cadillac Militia” returned to Manton with rifles, clubs, crowbars, a barrel of whiskey, and a band6 to retrieve the safes. They were successful, but Cadillac officials had spent more time figuring out how to secure county records than it had establishing a place to hold the courts. At first, county business was done on the flatcars that came back from Manton7!
Over the following years, officials used the Holbrook & May’s Building, the second floor of the Cornwall & La Bar Building, and a lumber company office on Mason Street. Commissioners eventually decamped for the second floor of Cadillac’s Masonic Temple in 18908, where they remained until 1913 when the present courthouse was built9. E. A. Boyd was the Lansing architect responsible for it, and the building looks a lot like his 1910 effort in nearby Montcalm County.
The two-story structure of brick, stone, and concrete, faces south on a hill above downtown. Sitting atop a raised basement, a south-facing portico with four columns and a pediment is the most prominent of the building’s features. It’s hard to see up close, but a low dome of red tile sits above the center of the courthouse. It all gives the impression of a nice Carnegie library.
Inside, the courthouse features a lobby with tile floors and a grand staircase. The courtroom sits at the northeast side of the building’s second story, and a meeting room for county commissioners sits opposite it. Unfortunately, the building’s interior underwent significant changes in the early 1990s10.
Bigger changes came in 2002, when officials broke ground on a $4.4 million addition designed by Wigan Tincknell Meyer & Associates. Built into the hillside, the addition extends two stories and does its best to blend with the original courthouse when viewed from the front thanks to its matching stone and brick. From the rear, however, it forms an L-shape, with a modern entrance and a three-story connector at the junction.
Although the establishment of a permanent seat in Wexford County was tumultuous, it resulted in the proud, Classical Revival building in the middle of Cadillac that has served the community for more than a hundred years. From the advent of modern infrastructure to shifts in local governance, it’s remained a steadfast presence as a point of pride for the entire county. As a regular visitor to the area, I can’t believe it took me twenty-five years to go see it!
TL;DR
Wexford County (pop. 34,226, 45/83)
Cadillac (pop. 10,430)
11/83 photographed
Built: 1913
Cost: $75,000 (about $2.4 million today)
Architect: Edwyn A. Bond
Style: Classical Revival
Courthouse Square: Shelbyville
Height: 3 stories
Current Use: County offices and courts
Photographed: 4/29/2018
Sources Cited
1 Cole, M. (1974). Michigan’s Courthouses Old And New. Maurice Cole [Oakland County]. Book.
2 Fedynsky, J. (2010). Michigan’s County Courthouses. The University of Michigan Press [Ann Arbor]. book.
3 (See footnote 2).
4 (See footnote 1).
5 (See footnote 2).
6 Battling for the County Seat (n.d.). Absolute Michigan [Traverse City]. Web. Retrieved December 22, 2024.
7 (see footnote 1).
8 Courthouse History. Keith Vincent. 2018. Web. Retrieved December 22, 2024.
9 Deacon, J. “Wexford County”. American Courthouses. 2008. Web. Retrieved December 21, 2024.
10 (See footnote 2).
This is surprisingly modest for a Midwestern courthouse. I can see the Carnegie library vibe.
I agree. It’s common to see modest modern courthouses in Michigan, but not so much modest historic ones!