I started collecting courthouse postcards after I wrapped up visiting every historic courthouse in Indiana. Often, the postcards I found featured courthouses that were no longer standing. Then, out of the blue, someone reached out with hopes of publishing a modern update to the classic The Magnificent 92 Indiana courthouse book. He wanted to use my writing, and before I knew it, a proof copy showed up at my door. I mailed him my entire postcard collection -six or seven years ago now- and never heard a peep after that.
Before I boxed up my collection and sent it off for what turned out to be forever, I made sure to scan my favorites. I’m glad I did! In no particular order, here are a handful of the old courthouse postcards I like the most.
The Greene County Courthouse in Bloomfield, Indiana
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. 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 towers, hipped roof, and third floor. The project also decapitated the building’s best feature -its clock tower- and refaced what remained with limestone.
The Porter County Courthouse in Valparaiso, Indiana
On an icy morning in 1934, Porter County residents in Valparaiso woke to discover that most of their 1883 courthouse was gone, ravaged by a blaze that started shortly after midnight. Firefighters finally managed to put out the fire after eleven hours, leaving the building frozen but smoldering.
As the smoke cleared, residents of Valparaiso milled around the square in shock. Some of the courthouse still stood, including the 168-foot-tall clock tower, but the damage was so significant that it took commissioners two years to finalize plans to build anew as they holed up in temporary offices in the building’s basement. They wound up hiring architect Walter Scholer to rehabilitate the structure. Work commenced, and the remodeled building was completed three years later.
The Jay County Courthouse in Portland, Indiana
Jay County’s third courthouse was built in 1875 and featured a multi-tiered clock tower. Unfortunately, it was too small to keep up with the demands of the area’s prosperity during the Indiana gas boom that occurred around the turn of the twentieth century. Interestingly, when it came time for officials to commission a replacement, they made the decision to forgo a tower.
The current Jay County Courthouse is one of only two courthouses built in Indiana between 1904 and 1929 that doesn’t feature a clock. There’s no tower; no clock tucked into a pediment. In fact, there’s nothing at all! Portland didn’t even add a freestanding clock nearby, the way some counties eventually did. By the time this courthouse rose, wristwatches were all the rage. No one needed to look skyward for the time.
The White County Courthouse in Monticello, Indiana
The present White County Building in Monticello is less than fifty years old, but officials had no choice but to build the heavily fortified courthouse: it replaced an eighty-year-old landmark that was flattened by a tornado. In 1974, nine separate cyclones throughout Illinois and Indiana killed eighteen people and inflicted more than $100 million in damages during a two-day span that became known as the Super Outbreak. The strongest hit Monticello dead on.
The ruined courthouse was similar to the current Blackford County Courthouse in Hartford City, designed by the same architects. The three-story building boasted octagonal turrets rising from three corners, and a three-story clock tower capped by a steep, pyramidal roof ascended from the fourth. Projecting, gabled entry masses divided each of the building’s elevations in half, and the courthouse was topped by a steep hipped roof and four chimneys. Obviously, it was dramatically different than the building that stands today.
The Madison County Courthouse in Anderson, Indiana
The third Madison County Courthouse was a great example of the Second Empire style translated through a homespun, Hoosier lens. Unfortunately, Madison County officials realized that they needed more room to conduct official business as early as 1955. That’s the year they authorized a study to explore several different possibilities of increasing the space that the courthouse offered. The situation was bad.
The courthouse wasn’t just too small- it was dangerous. If a fire started, the staircase the auditor used was the only means of escape for people on all three floors. Exposed wiring, switchboxes, electrical conduit, and pipes overtook the structure’s historic décor and monopolized its ceilings. Outside, the foundation was breaking away from the rest of the courthouse. Two sets of monumental stairways were closed after people tripped and filed suit. The attic was full of dead birds, feathers, and tons and tons of guano. The old building was demolished, and its replacement was completed in 1972.
The Floyd County Courthouse in New Albany, Indiana
In the 1950s, old buildings represented antiquated ideals at odds with the atomic age. The situation in Floyd County got so bad that a Saturday Evening Post reporter sent to New Albany for a story couldn’t even find the courthouse. He kept driving past it, thinking it was a deserted warehouse! I’ve never seen a warehouse that features enormous Doric columns, but the incident put city and county officials on notice.
Spurred by new legislation that paved the way for consolidated building authorities, they joined forces to demolish an entire city block where the 1867 courthouse, an ancient post office, and the elderly Floyd County Jail stood. In their place, officials erected a 70,000 square-foot New Albany-Floyd County City-County Building that housed the combined government functions for, you guessed it- Floyd County and the city of New Albany.
The Cass County Courthouse in Logansport, Indiana
The first real Cass County Courthouse was completed in 1844 for $16,393, sixteen years after the county was founded. Considered one of the finest in the state, it anchored a community set to boom since Logansport sat at the confluence of the Wabash and Eel rivers, the Wabash and Erie Canal, and the Michigan Road, an early superhighway connecting Michigan City with Madison by Indianapolis. By the 1880s, officials needed a new courthouse to serve all the new constituents. The courthouse was added to in 1888.
The plan was successful, but the larger building didn’t age well. Old courthouses are fantastic architectural statements, but they’re not easy to maintain; clock towers, rooflines, and chimneys prove especially difficult to preserve over many decades. Many of those elements were removed from the Cass County Courthouse during a 1953 renovation. Unfortunately, the 1979 Cass County courthouse wasn’t intended to augment its elderly predecessor. Instead, it was built nineteen feet west of it, next to a parking lot planned for where the old building stood.
Here’s one final image of the old Cass County Courthouse in Logansport after it underwent some striking renovations in 1953. The makeover ruined the building. It’s a reminder of how these courthouses weren’t just static landmarks- they evolved with their communities and adapted to new eras in good and bad ways before they were destroyed. I’ve got even more postcard scans tucked away, and with any luck, I’ll be sharing plenty of them in the new year.
