Monday, August 22, 2011

County Courthouse tidbits

There is nothing boring about courthouses in Montana. Jefferson County Courthouse, built in 1888 has the distinction of being the only courthouse in Montana with gargoyles on the corners of the building perched just below the eave line.

The Big Horn County Courthouse was built during the Great Depression as a Public Works Administration Project. Because the goal of the WPA was get people off of assistance and back to work, most of the laborers on the project were unskilled or semiskilled. In order to best utilize these workers the design was kept simple.

Without doubt the most interesting County Courthouse in Montana is the Daniels County Courthouse. The building started out as the Commercial Hotel. In 1915, One-eyed Molly bought the building and transformed it into a gambling, drinking and dog fighting establishment that also happened to be a house of ill-repute. Molly was only in business for a couple of years, but it was enough to give the place a character of its own. When Daniels county was formed in 1920 and Scobey was chosen as the county seat, the county bought the building and transformed it into the County Courthouse. The courthouse, with an addition to double the size of the building, is still in use.

The source of the courthouse information is from the text of the National Register of Historic Places sign texts for each respective building. If you are interested in reading more of these signs you can go to the website for the Montana Historical Society 
and click on the online resources, next go to the Montana History Wiki link.  http://mhs.mt.gov/research/

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