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When most people think of historic courthouses, they picture columns, carvings, and monumental stairs worn smooth by more than a century of footsteps. Delaware County’s fourth courthouse has none of those things, and that’s exactly why it matters. Completed more than half a century ago, the Delaware County Building traded grandeur for a stripped-down modern structure that was as bold as it has proven to be controversial. Today, it stands as a rare and well-preserved civic landmark. The building deserves to be recognized on the National Register of Historic Places.

Delaware County officials placed a new kind of civic building on Muncie’s historic city square in the late 1960s- a thoroughly modern courthouse unlike anything that had stood there before. The building’s predecessor featured sandstone, statuary, and a soaring clock tower, but architects Hamilton, Graham Associates, and George W. Cox envisioned something new: a functional landmark that drew from the prevailing Brutalist and Mid-Century Modern modes of the time. More than half a century later, those qualities combine with the building’s significant local history to qualify it for national recognition.

Delaware County’s been home to a slew of courthouses over the years. We’re up to six now, but the 1969 version was our fourth. The first came in 1829. Measuring 20 by 40 feet, it was a simple, two-story frame structure¹. The second, built in 1837, featured a hipped roof and cupola². Completed in 1887, the county’s landmark third courthouse was a Second Empire masterpiece designed by Fort Wayne architect Brentwood Tolan.

Its replacement stands as the resolution of a transition in Delaware County’s civic life. After decades of deferred maintenance wore it down³, the lavish 1887 courthouse was demolished in an act of urban renewal⁴. Muncie was booming, and the erection of a new seat of government reflected a government and its constituents united in the belief that contemporary design could confidently carry their community into the jet age⁵.

Architecturally, the County Building acknowledged that turning point in downtown Muncie’s history as a fresh start from the Victorian chapter that ended in rubble. With granite, quartz, and cement walls; narrow vertical windows; and a broad, cantilevered form, the courthouse is unmistakably of its era. Each element reflects the Brutalist ideals of material candor and civic gravitas, which separate the County Building from Indiana’s other modern courthouses. It’s also set apart from today’s government complexes that mimic styles from centuries past. Honest civic structures like the County Building simply aren’t being built anymore.

Still, whether the County Building is truly Brutalist is a fair question. Its architects sidestepped labels entirely when C. Eugene Hamilton flatly described the structure as “functional⁶.” Its unadorned surfaces, expansive first-floor glass walls, and seamless integration with the building’s original civic plaza⁷ transcend pure Brutalism as hallmarks of Mid-Century Modernism⁸. Perhaps it’s best to simply view the Delaware County Building as a unique entry into Indiana’s portfolio of historic courthouses. 

Whether it’s Brutalist, Mid-Century Modern, or some fusion of the two, the Delaware County Building holds its place firmly within the national story of late-modern civic architecture. For its part, the National Park Service, which administers the National Register of Historic Places, has long recognized modernism as a significant chapter in the American built environment. Nearby, the city of Columbus, Indiana, is a perfect example⁹. Registering the Delaware County Courthouse would spread that recognition to East-Central Indiana’s civic architecture and help balance the state’s preservation record across periods and styles. It’d also help protect a unique structure that, today, faces an uncertain future¹⁰. 

That said, eligibility for the National Register of Historic Places doesn’t just rely on a building’s local importance, context, or architectural merit. Integrity -or the ability of a property to convey its significance- also matters. The Delaware County Courthouse still holds onto its defining features, and for now, it continues to serve as one of the few county offices on Muncie’s historic courthouse square. That ongoing governmental role, combined with its public accessibility, reinforces its setting, feeling, and association.

Listing the 1969 courthouse on the National Register of Historic Places isn’t a matter of choosing modern cement over Victorian sandstone. Instead, it’s about acknowledging the full story of Delaware County’s courthouse history. Remembering its nineteenth-century chapters -especially the 1887 landmark- at the expense of its replacement distorts the narrative and sidelines the postwar decades when Muncie boomed into its long-gone heyday. The Delaware County Building is a three-dimensional record of that period in time, and that makes it valuable. 

Moreover, the courthouse also offers educational value. Brutalist characteristics may be caricatured as ugly or cold, but they aimed to convey durability, equality, and clarity. Rather than marble walls, impassable halls, and hidden chambers, the Delaware County Courthouse placed its government plainly before its citizens. In Indiana, where modernism has been recognized at the highest levels in places like Columbus, the County Building gives the Muncie community its own reference point for the ideals and debates of an era of progress.

Unfortunately, Delaware County’s fourth courthouse wouldn’t win any popularity contest. Naysayers probably abound- some of whom might claim the County Building isn’t photogenic enough to be listed. Fortunately, this is a building that refuses to take a bad photo. What’s more is that beauty isn’t in the Register’s group of criterions; significance is. The National Park Service explicitly evaluates properties for their importance in history, architecture, engineering, and culture- not popular taste. Buildings with Brutalist characteristics throughout the country, like Albuquerque’s Main Library¹¹ and Riverside Plaza in Minneapolis¹² have already been listed because they’re substantive representations of a distinct period and philosophy of public design. Meanwhile, hundreds of Mid-Century Modern structures have been enshrined as well. 

Others who wrinkle their noses at the County Building’s appearance might insist that the real honor belongs to the ornate 1887 courthouse it replaced. In truth, both deserve acknowledgement. Recognizing the latter doesn’t erase the former’s legacy. If anything, it puts the building’s loss into perspective and highlights the lessons it left behind- lessons other counties took to heart by finding creative, successful ways to give their oldest courthouses new life. A wider view helps us see not just what we lost, but what we still have, and why it matters.

That said, even others might argue that the old courthouse hasn’t actually held courts in more than thirty years. They’re right, but what matters for the National Register isn’t whether every gavel still falls within its walls, but whether the building continues to convey the design, setting, and role of its period. The Delaware County Building does exactly that from its historic site on the square as a visible reminder of Muncie’s postwar civic ambitions. 

At the end of the day, the 1969 Delaware County Courthouse is a rare, well-preserved civic building with Brutalist and Mid-Century Modern elements. It was designed by local architects of high regard and built at a moment of profound change in Muncie’s story. Its integrity is intact, it surpasses the fifty-year bar for inclusion on the NRHP, and it tells a story our community needs to keep in mind. On the National Register, it would stand alongside Indiana’s better‑known modern landmarks and ensure that Delaware County’s postwar civic era is recognized and stewarded with the same care we still extend to its long-gone predecessor. That balance is the purpose of the Register- and why the 1969 courthouse deserves a place on it.

Sources Cited
1 Helm, Thomas B. “History of Delaware County, Indiana” Kingman Bros. [Chicago]. 1881. Print.
2 Kemper, General William Harrison. “A Twentieth Century History of Delaware County, Indiana, Volume 1. Lewis Publishing Company [Chicago]. 1908. Print.
3 Commissioners Tell Courthouse Plans (19865, September 8). The Muncie Star. p. 1. 
4 Time to Act (1965, May 11). The Muncie Evening Press. p. 1.
5 “’Citizens Army Launches Petition Drive for New Courthouse” (1965, September 10). The Muncie Evening Press. p. 14. 
6 Brantley, B. (1966, December 4). Three-Story Design in Quartz, Granite Chosen for County.  The Muncie Star. p. 1. 
7 Slabaugh, S. (2013, November 9). BSU prof chronicles courthouses, Sees County Building as victim of 1960s. The Muncie Star Press. Pp. A1- A4. 
8 Davies, R. (2023, January 23). Midcentury-Modern Architecture: Everything You Should Know About the Funky and Functional Style. Architectural Digest. Web. Retriebed August 12, 2025. 
9 National Register of Historic Places listings in Bartholomew County, Indiana (2009, May 30). Wikipedia. Web. Retrieved August 12, 2025. 
10 Delaware County government offices could be moving to justice center (2025, June 16). The Muncie Star Press. Web. Retrieved August 12, 2025. 
11 National Register of Historic Places, Main Library, Albuquerque, Bernalillo County, New Mexico, National Register # 1000033217.
12 National Register of Historic Places, Cedar Square West/Riverside Plaza, Minneapolis, Hennepin County, Minnesota, National Register # 10001090.