Art Deco architecture originated in France before World War I. To me, the style epitomizes luxury, glamour, and exuberance. Unfortunately, the Hoosier State isn’t known as a hotbed for it unless you go out of your way to, say, the Fountain County Courthouse in Covington. Stumbling across an Art Deco building in a rural town is surprising!
Continue reading “The Fountain County, Indiana Courthouse (1937-)”
I tend to think of a city as a boring grid of streets. It turns out that the people who planned about 85% of the county seats in Indiana felt the same way since they feature what historians call a Shelbyville Square, a regular old city block bounded on each side by a street. Ironically, Shelbyville, Indiana lacks a Shelbyville Square. You’ve got to travel four blocks south of the city’s Lancaster Square to see the courthouse, but once you do, you’re in for a treat: Shelby County’s is one of only three art deco examples in the state.
Continue reading “The Shelby County Courthouse in Indiana (1937-)”
So far in Indiana, we’ve lost 26 historic courthouses to fire1, seven to disrepair, and one to a tornado. Fortunately, the losses have died off in the last thirty years. Today, we’re left with all three of the state’s art deco courthouses. If Robert Gray had his way in 1987, though, we’d be down to two. Gray wasn’t a pyro, nor was he a county commissioner with shady ties to an excavation and demolition contractor or anything out of the ordinary. He was just a 42-year-old laborer at the local Chrysler plant in Kokomo. A blue-collar guy with charges pending- a blue-collar guy with a bomb in his briefcase.
Continue reading “The Howard County Courthouse in Indiana (1937-)”