Alexander County Courthouse (Illinois)
The Alexander County Courthouse is a government building in central Cairo, the county seat of Alexander County, Illinois, United States. Built in the 1960s, it is the latest in a series of courthouses erected in four towns across Alexander County.
Past county seats
Alexander County was created out of
Cairo as seat
While towns farther north rotated the honor of county seat, the site of Fort Defiance at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi had been growing into a significant town. The General Assembly chartered a company to found a town there in 1837 under the name of "Cairo, Illinois",[1]: 24 and by 1841 Cairo had two thousand residents.[1]: 27 Nearly all the residents abandoned the town following an 1842 flood,[1]: 32 but a newly constructed levee protected the site during the Great Flood of 1844,[1]: 35 and Cairo began to prosper in the early 1850s.[1]: 48 By 1860, it was rich enough to mount a successful challenge to Thebes for the status of county seat, although a new courthouse was not built until 1865,[1]: 465 the Civil War having dominated life in Cairo during the intervening years. The new building was a two-story structure in the Neoclassical style with pedimented gables and colonnade over the main entrance.[2]: 16 Although large, this building deteriorated comparatively rapidly; it was deemed "horribly kept" by an 1883 county history,[1]: 465 and some county offices were located in the Old Customhouse several blocks away.[1]: 17 The old building nevertheless remained in use until 1963, when it was destroyed and replaced by the present building.[2]: 16
Current courthouse
Located on Washington Avenue,[4] the current courthouse is a modernist building, long and just one story tall. Much of the facade is brick with numerous windows, although the right end of the facade (as seen from the street) is concrete with no doors or windows.[2]: 16
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Perrin, William H., ed. History of Alexander, Union, and Pulaski counties, Illinois. Chicago: Baskin, 1883.
- ^ a b c d Weiser, Dennis. Illinois courthouses: an illustrated history. Virginia Beach: Donning, 2009.
- ^ Farrar, William G. National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: Thebes Courthouse. National Park Service, 1972-05-17, 3.
- ^ Alexander County, First Judicial Circuit Court of Illinois, 2018. Accessed 2018-12-01.