Local historians disagree on the best way to count the number of courthouses in Delaware County. The number depends on how one defines the word “courthouse.”
In the most literal sense, a courthouse is a building that houses a district courtroom. By this definition, there were six courthouses in Delaware County.
The first building was a two-story wood-frame structure built in 1829. It was replaced by a two-story brick building with a dome in 1837, a sandstone building in 1887, and a concrete and steel courthouse in 1969.
The Delaware County Justice Center (the old jail) opened in 1992 and included a courtroom for the district court.
Finally, in 2021, the Delaware County Justice and Rehabilitation Center opened in the renovated Wilson Middle School building near Middletown Park. All district court cases are now heard at the Justice Center.
The second interpretation counts only four courthouses: the 1829 wooden structure, the 1837 brick building, the 1887 sandstone courthouse, and the impressive 1969 concrete behemoth that still stands. This view defines “courthouse” in the broadest sense as a building that houses the county government – its courts, political offices, sheriffs, bureaucrats, and judges – essentially the “city hall” of Delaware County.
Neither definition of courthouse is accurate anymore, at least not for us. It’s hard to call the county building downtown a courthouse when there are no courts. Nor can we really call the Justice Center way out on Tillotson the seat of county government when so much of the administration remains downtown.
Place the courthouse in the center of the city
The original idea of building a courthouse on a public square dates back to the 19th century. Unlike decadent Europe, with its crusty old monuments and gloomy churches in the city center, the cities of the new republic were to revolve around the rule of law, or so the idea went. Most of Hoosier County’s early county commissioners adopted this Jeffersonian ideal and built their courthouses on a centrally located public square.
After Muncietown was chosen as the seat of the courts of Delaware County in 1827, three settlers – William Brown, Lemuel Jackson and Goldsmith Gilbert – donated land to the state for a county courthouse and jail. The land was bounded by Washington, Walnut, Main and High streets. Oddly enough, however, the first courthouse was built west of the public square in what is now the parking lot at 109 N. High St.
I suspect the reason was that Goldsmith Gilbert had no actual title to the land he had donated. In 1826, Gilbert had agreed to buy Rebekah Hackley’s land reserve for $960. A year later, when he donated part of that land for the Muncietown public square, he had not yet paid Hackley. In fact, he did not pay the debt until a judge ordered him to do so in 1835.
Two years after the title clearing, a new brick courthouse opened on the Muncietown square. Historian Thomas Helm described it as “45 feet square and 28 feet high, crowned with a cupola.” An addition was added in 1848.
Muncie’s courthouse becomes a disgrace
By the end of the 1870s, the courthouse proved inadequate, cramped and smelly. Local editorials and opinion pieces called for something new. “An elegant courthouse would not be bad,” complained the Muncie Morning News in the summer of 1880, “but let the courthouse question continue to arise.”
Within a year, the building became a disgrace to the entire state.
After a sensational week-long murder trial in the hot summer of 1881, the Indianapolis Journal wrote that Delaware County “should be ashamed of the old, dilapidated, dilapidated courthouse. It is a disgrace to so rich a county and a blot on so fine a city.” The Muncie Daily Times agreed, writing, “The commissioners would not hesitate in this matter if they were compelled to remain confined in this miserably ventilated and uncomfortable room.”
Still, the commissioners balked. Vocal voters, led by valley farmers living along the Mississinewa River, opposed any new courthouse tax. The debate raged for years, but in January 1884, the commissioners went ahead with construction of a new building. The Morning News proclaimed, “The neighborhood is already filled with resounding hosannas over the determination of the commissioners to build a new courthouse. May the building be a feast for the eyes and a joy forever.”
The county hired architect Brentwood Tolan of Fort Wayne to design the building. Brentwood and his late father, Thomas, were respected regional specialists in municipal architecture. The Tolans had recently completed ornate courthouses in LaGrange, Parke and Kosciusko counties. The Morning News described Brentwood as “a man of honor well known to our citizens, who is absolutely reliable and eminently capable.”
The old courthouse was demolished in the summer of 1884. The court was temporarily moved across High Street to Walling Hall, a two-story building on the site of the first courthouse. The county treasurer, town clerk, auditor, and surveyor all moved to J.L. Streeter’s new building on the north side of the square.
Contractor Charles Pierce was awarded the contract for construction with a budget of $195,618.46, equivalent to about $6.3 million today. The building commission commissioned Mock Brothers Brick Yards on Macedonian Pike to manufacture 3 million bricks. Sandstone was chosen for the facade.
Construction began in the spring of 1885 with the delivery of the first bricks. On April 13, the News reported that “workmen began this morning to cut the bricks into the sizes and shapes appropriate for the building.”
Tolan’s courthouse was “built in the French Renaissance style,” according to the Morning News. Citizens could enter the building from any side, with grand staircases at the east and west entrances. The elegantly decorated Main Street entrance served as the main entrance. The whole thing was crowned by a dome with a bell tower.
The next courthouse is “one of the most beautiful in the state”
The ground floor was completed in the fall of 1885. Unfortunately, no local newspapers survive from 1886, so there is no detailed history of the rest. However, the Indianapolis Journal reported in September that “the new courthouse at Muncie, considered one of the finest in the State, is now ready for the tower and roof.”
The great Delaware County Courthouse opened to the public in the spring of 1887. The Delaware Circuit Court moved in later that summer. In October, a Munsonian told a Daily Times reporter that it was “the most beautiful building I have ever seen. I believe it is as beautiful as the State House.”
The newest courthouse for Delaware County
That courthouse stood for 80 years. By 1960, it had become a cramped, smelly place – a mirror of the conditions of its predecessor. Its neglected exterior was regularly covered in disgusting starling guano. In 1966, officials had it torn down. The current building, Delaware County’s fourth courthouse, was completed four years later.
When the day comes that the short-sighted raze our last downtown courthouse, I will go down with it. I will chain myself to that strange cantilevered thing jutting out toward Walnut Street. Although I don’t understand its design, I have grown fond of the county building for its uniqueness and symbolism. To me, it is Delaware County’s last link to a nobler age of public spaces and great architecture.
Chris Flook is a board member of the Delaware County Historical Society and a media lecturer at Ball State University.
