Boone County, Indiana - Chapter 17: County Buildings, 1914

Chapter 17: County Buildings

The Boone county court house was dedicated July 4, 1912, and is one of the most classic and commodious court houses in Indiana. It is of Oolitic limestone, three stories and a basement for storage purposes. On the first floor are located rest rooms for women and men, the surveyor's office, county superintendent's office, county assessor's office, prosecuting attorney's office, and the Grand Army of the Republic hall. On the second floor are the offices of the auditor, clerk, treasurer and recorder, with vaults for each office for the storage of books and records. The circuit court room, a small court room, an assembly hall, 'witnesses' rooms, the library, and the sheriff's room are located on the third floor. There are ample storage rooms for books and records in the upper part of the building, with lavatories for men and women on every floor. Every want of the county and community is embraced in the arrangement of the building for the next hundred years to come.

The agitation for the new building was commenced the last week in December, 1908, and continued until it resulted in the commissioners making an order for the building.

After mass meetings, and circulation of petitions asking for the construction of a new court house, the commissioners made an order April 7, 1909, for a new building.

That there might be no question of graft or politics, the commissioners asked that a citizens' committee be appointed to work with them; this was done and Messrs. W. J. DeVol, James M. Nicely, John E. Frost and Dr. H. N. Coons were selected.

After visiting several Indiana court houses, to get ideas, the committee employed Joseph T. Hutton, of Hammond, Indiana, as architect to draw up plans and specifications, these being approved by the committee August 16, 1909. The contract for the erection of the building was let to Caldwell & Drake, of Columbus, Indiana, on the 4th day of October, 1909. The work

Excavation for the new structure was begun in October, 1909, the first concrete in foundation placed November 17, 1909, and the building completed and accepted December 20, 191 1, at a total cost of $265,000.00, and the building thrown open to the public New Year's day, 19 12.

The building which is of granite and Bedford stone has a total width of 105 feet and a total length of 142 feet, exclusive of entrance projections, and is 120 feet, 9 inches from the ground to the top of the clock tower, the flagstaff extending about 20 feet above this point.

The main square of the building is 51 feet, 6 inches high, the stone work in the tower 80 feet high and the floor of the clock tower 101 feet and the north and south pediments 66 feet. The huge monolithic columns at the north and south entrances are a distinguishing feature of the structure being the longest one-piece limestone columns in the United States and perhaps in the world, being exceeded in size by a few granite columns in New York City.

The eight were quarried in one huge piece, 80 feet long and having no machinery at the mills sufficient to work them out they were scabbled into hexagonal shapes about 38 feet long and \Y/2 feet in diameter and shipped here one to a car, each one weighing about 40 tons. They were then cut by hand to their present shape, being 35 feet 5^ inches long, exclusive of cap and base and 3 feet 6 inches at top and weighing about thirty tons each. The cap on top of each weighs about five tons.

The smaller columns on east and west are 25^2 feet long and 2 feet 10 inches in diameter. Another distinguishing feature is the size of the dome, being 52 feet across, it being said that there is but one other dome in the state having a greater diameter, the one at West Baden.

The interior of the building is exceptionally well lighted, there being no part of the building that is not well lighted, there being no dark corridors or rooms.

The building has a basement, and four stories above; the basement is unfinished and houses pipes for heating, water, ventilation, etc., the fresh air for the building being taken in through the basement passes through a current of running water to remove dust and other impurities, and in winter passes over heated coils to raise the temperature, and is then driven by a huge motor driven fan to various parts of the building.

On the first floor is found the Grand Army of the Republic room, set apart for the use of the old soldiers. This room is very appropriately decorated with the emblems of the Grand Army of the Republic and the names of some of the battles of the Civil war that Boone county boys were engaged in.

The old soldiers have nicely furnished it, decorating the walls with pictures of war time leaders and have started a collection of war time relics.

The county offices on this floor are prosecuting attorney, superintendent of schools, surveyor and county assessor. Each has a private office separated by a partition of ornamental imperial plate glass.

Toilet rooms finished in white Parian marble, tile floors, and nickeled brass fixtures are found on each floor. The rest room for men on the first floor is one much visited, but perhaps the most appreciated room is the women's rest room, in the southwest corner of the building. This latter room is a large, airy, well-lighted one, fitted with chairs, rockers, settees and tables with a telephone booth, a dressing room and toilet in connection.

The floors of the corridors, rotunda, lobbies, toilets and public space in offices on the second floor are of ceramic mosaic tile with a border in colors, laid on a reinforced concrete base ; the floors in the various rooms are i }4 inch quartered oak laid on reinforced concrete or hollow tile and concrete base.

An attractive feature of the building is the immense rotunda, which floods the interior with sunlight by day and electric light by night; the interior dome is very attractively finished in art glass, as are the ceiling lights of the court rooms, convention hall and court library. The distance from the first floor to the top of the art glass dome it 84 feet.

The wainscoting of corridors and rotunda is a white Italian marble, five feet high on the first floor and three and one-half feet high on the others, with a verde green Vermont marble base. The stairways from first to second floors are massive ones of white marble throughout; those from the second to the third have marble treads and platforms.

The columns in the rotunda are heavy steel, protected by concrete, covered by an imitation marble called scagliola, made of a Keene's cement, shipped from England with the coloring incorporated to imitate the kind of marble chosen. (28)

In the south corridor is a massive bronze tablet, costing $500.00 inscribed with the date of construction, names of commissioners, citizens' committee, architect, builders, etc.

Up to the time of the Revolutionary war, lands were described by "metes and bounds," and that system is still used in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Texas, part of Ohio, and all of the New England states. In this system all lands were described by following roads, streams, or compass lines, and as compass lines vary, and the other lines shifting or easily changed, litigation was constantly coming up.

At the close of the Revolutionary war, when the United States had received a title to all the lands lying between the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and Virginia had ceded all her right by the Ordinance of 1887, Thomas Jefferson devised a better plan for the survey of lands in this territory. Up to that date lands had been marked and designated by the French system. For an example, note how the lands in Knox and Clark counties are laid off. The system introduced by Jefferson was to designate a meridian line as a base from which to measure land east and west, and designate this line by number. The first meridian is the boundary line between Ohio and Indiana. The second meridian is a line from the Ohio river due north to the northern boundary of the state. This second meridian passes through the hall of the court house at Lebanon, and divides the county into two equal parts east and west of this line. Each meridian line has a line crossing it at some point at right angles running east and west and it is called the base line. The base line of the second meridian crosses in Orange county. Parallel with the meridian line are drawn lines six miles apart, dividing the land into strips six miles wide called ranges, and numbered from the meridian one, two, three, etc., east or west, owing to which side east or west of the line it is located. The lines that are drawn parallel with the base line six miles apart are called town lines and numbered one, two, three, etc., north or south of the base line. These range lines running north and south and the town lines running east and west, cut the lands into squares six miles on each side and each forms a Congressional township, and each is named by numbers range east or west and town north or south of the second meridian or whatever may be the number of the meridian line the survey is made from. For example, Lebanon is located in the east half of section 36, town 19 north, range I west, second meridian, and in the west half of section 31, town 19 north, range 1 east of the second meridian. Each Congressional township is divided into thirty-six sections, each containing six hundred and forty acres and numbered, beginning at the northeast corner, counting to the west until six, then drop down one and count east to twelve, thus back and forth until you reach the southeast corner No. 36.

Ohio, Indiana and Illinois were surveyed as one unit, and a base line was established in southern Indiana, the first principal meridian on what is now the Ohio-Indiana line, the second through central Indiana and the third through central Illinois.

This second principal meridian passes through the center of the court house, and is marked by a tablet consisting of an arrow of white and black marble, with the words "Meridian Line" in bronze letters, the design set in a mat of brown tile.

On the second floor are found the four main offices, the county auditor, recorder, clerk and treasurer, with commissioners' room located between the auditor's and treasurer's offices and toilets on the north.

Each of the main offices has a private office and a fire-proof record room; these rooms have heavy brick walls, hollow tile and concrete floors, and iron doors and fitted up with metal furniture, making them as nearly fire-proof as is possible. Each main office is about thirty-five feet by fortytwo feet square; the record rooms about seventeen feet by thirty-two feet.

On the third floor are the large and small court rooms, the convention hall, court library, sheriff's office, judges' and stenographers' rooms, jury rooms and toilets.

Court room number one, or the large court room, is eighty-two feet long and forty-two feet wide, with art glass ceiling lights, making it a well lighted room. This room is very artistically decorated and has an eight-foot paneled Keene's cement wainscoting. On the north, over the judge's stand is a very fine oil painting costing $500. The pilasters of the court rooms and convention hall are of verde green scagliola work surmounted by artistic caps and brackets.

The small court room is thirty-two feet by forty-two feet, with art glass ceiling lights. The convention hall is forty-two feet by fifty feet, with art glass ceiling lights; this room is fitted up with opera chairs and arm chairs to be used for writing. On the landing of the stairs from the third

On the fourth floor is the upper part of the library and fire-proof rooms for the storage of old records; these old records have been arranged in proper places, each office separately. On this floor are also found two motor driven fans which take the foul air from the toilets of the entire building. The building is heated by about 14,000 square feet of radiation attached to the city hot water plant, so arranged as to heat the building nicely at all times. The lighting is taken care of by about 1,500 sixteen-candle power electric lights, there being 245 in the corridors and rotunda, 100 in the large court room arranged around the art glass ceiling lights, fifty-six in the small court room, and sixty in the convention hall. The offices on the second floor are also fitted up with gas lights. The lighting fixtures are of plain antique brass.

The wood trim throughout the building is of heavy quarter sawed oak, finished a medium golden oak as is the furniture, which is plain and massive. Each room and corridor is very artistically decorated in oil, no two rooms being decorated in the same color designs.

The busy officials are reminded of the time by a system of clocks, which are regulated and worked automatically by a large master clock located in the janitor's room on the first floor, the smaller clocks being run by compressed air. The tower clock is of the Seth Thomas type, worked by weights, and automatically wound twice a day, by an electric motor.

The four faces are each six feet in diameter, and lighted at night by five electric lights back of each dial; the bell weighs 1,500 pounds and the weights about 1,400 pounds, the ball of the pendulum weighing 175 pounds.

Prelude To Hon. Charles Fairbanks' Speech

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen - We are assembled under happy auspices to participate in an event of historic importance. Our people are in the enjoyment of the fruits of orderly government, which they have won in the various avenues of activity which call into play the qualities of a fine order of citizenship. Our state, which celebrates a few years hence the one hundredth anniversary of her admission into the union, has achieved high place in the respect and admiration of the country; she has become a factor of consequence in the commercial and industrial world; and in the literary field she occupies a position of exceptional eminence. Our population of nearly three million is enamored of its state and has a profound respect for its self-enacted laws and yields to them loyal obedience.

We are a state in which there are no great extremes of either poverty or wealth. We are not divided into classes, warring with one another. Here men are appraised for what they are and not for what they possess. We are essentially a state of home lovers and home builders. We have a neighborly, genuine regard for each other's welfare, and I hope that neither increasing population nor growing wealth may destroy this splendid characteristic of Hoosier life.

The people of Boone county are to be congratulated upon the erection of this building. There is no other in the state of Indiana which surpasses it, either in architectural design or in the excellence of its construction. There is a beauty, strength and majesty about it which in the best sense typifies the citizenship of the county which has built it.

Long after this scene has faded from the memories of men this temple of justice and this home of the public business of Boone county will stand as physical evidence of your breadth of view in public affairs and of your regard for the future. These massive walls will long survive you, blessing your children and their children yet to be. A great edifice dedicated to public uses should symbolize the character of the community; it should be a truthful expression of its intellectual, artistic and material attainments, and in a measure anticipate its future needs.

No one can look upon this achievement in art - unsurpassed anywhere in its class - without a sense of exaltation, and for years to come it will tend to shape the ideals of those who behold it, both the old and young; they will draw from it a sense of proportion and grace, beauty, utility, solidity and strength; it will impress them with the power and permanence of the government - the necessity of law and order. The people will reverence it because it will link them with the past ; they will perceive in it the splendid contribution which you their fathers, have made to them and emphasize their duty to build also for the future. They will behold in it one of the rich trophies of civil liberty.

This is one of the assurances against social disorder and anarchy. To this sanctuary the oppressed may come for the redress of their wrongs ; here men whether favored by fortune or otherwise, will stand equal before the law.

The first jail in Boone county was built on the east side of the public square. It was made of hewed logs one foot square, with one door and one window. It was not a very imposing structure but sufficiently large and safe to house all the county boarders of that early date.

The second jail was built much after the pattern of the first. It was located on the north side of the public square on the lot where the first court house stood. It was of hewed logs one foot square. It was a little larger than the first jail and was considered at the day in which it was constructed, an improvement on the first building. It was larger and better ventilated and better adapted for its use.

The third jail was built of brick, stone and iron. The main thought in view was to make it secure and fire proof. There was not any increase in size. In fact at that period it was not thought that Boone county would grow any more and there had been little use of the former jails so there was no increase in size, in fact it was no larger than the first jail. The commissioners concluded that the material of which it was made would make for any deficiency of size.

The fourth jail, the one now in use, stands on the northeast corner of the public square. It is a more modern structure built for the health, comfort and security of its occupants. The sheriff's residence is constructed together with it and is of brick, stone and iron. It was built in 1877 by order of the county commissioners, Jesse Jackson, Nathan Perrill and James Coombs. The plans were drawn by T. J. Tolan and Sons and the contract was let to J. W. Hinkley. The cost was eighteen thousand dollars.

County Infirmary

The count)- infirmary or poor farm of three hundred and twenty acres is located one mile southeast of Lebanon. It is choice land and the buildings are modern and excellent in every respect for the purpose for which they were designed. It is modern in structure and handsome in appearance. It was built in 1895 at a cost of fourteen thousand dollars by order of county commissioners Stucky, Shaw and Martindale. Very few counties in the state have better provisions for caring for the unfortunate than Boone, which speaks louder than words for the progressive generosity of its people.

Orphan S Home, Lebanon

This home-like structure is adjoining to the poor farm on a forty acre lot. It is as homelike and comfortable as the best of homes in the county. The same commissioners that improved the poor farm, remodeled and improved the home for the children. When the county adds to these two institutions a home for the aged, she will have reached the highest mark in civilization in providing for the unfortunate poor, the childhood and the aged. The spirit of this county will doubtless take this step in the near future and provide a home for the worn out men and women in its service outside of the infirmary in the shape of a nice comfortable home.

The Crawford Home, Zionsville

Through the generosity of Mr. and Mrs. Edward C. Crawford, a large tract of land, part in Marion and part in Boone counties, just east of Zionsville, was given for a Children's Home and Industrial School. This home is under control and management of the Baptist church. It contains three hundred and fifteen acres of splendid soil, productive and remunerative. It is open to children of all religious denominations, children of the Baptist having the preference, if there is not room for all that apply. It was open for the reception of children August 26, 1906. The children are received at any age and are kept until they are fourteen or fifteen years of age, unless placed in desirable homes sooner. The system of the institution is to find suitable homes for the children as soon as desirable, keeping in touch with them until the above stated age. The children have three hours of school work each day and eight months of school work each year. In addition to the school work the girls receive practical training in household and domestic work and the boys are taught practical farming and manual training.

Early in the history of the schools of Indiana the law provided for public school libraries. After the organization of the State Teachers' Association early in the fifties the agitation of all questions pertaining to the welfare of the schools came to the front and were discussed and recommendation made to the legislative body for advancement in legislation. The State Superintendent was established, State Board of Education created, provisions for building school houses, institutes, State Normal, county supervision and many other steps were taken for the advancement of the educational interest of the state. Not the least among these was the provision for public libraries. Each township was to provide a township library where the children could have access to the books. This system spread until each township of Boone county, was supplied with a circulating library and all the children of the county had access to a well-selected class of books for general reading and information. In the report of the state superintendent of 191 1 and 1912, Boone county is given as having 2,567 volumes in her township libraries, 1,750 in her towns, and 6,100 in her cities, making the total of 10,417 in the county, and there was an addition of 1,350 books made to the libraries the last year. In addition to these public school libraries there were other private libraries in Sunday schools and other organizations in the county.

There are also two Carnegie libraries established in the county. One at Lebanon that has been in operation for several years containing 9,500 volumes and one at Thorntown under construction and intended to supply the children of Sugar Creek township and Thorntown with reading matter.

and other educational advantages. In fact this county has left nothing undone that is necessary for physical, intellectual and moral wants of her children. Most liberal provisions have been made for the comfort and advancement of her children. This advancement and public spirit for the comforts and luxuries of life are remarkable, when we consider the great hardships and privations through which her citizens came.