Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 10A
TIMES Continued from Page 8A
larger, more modem one of brick hand
made from local red clay. A reporter for The
Houston Home Journal described both
buildings in an article in 1872, concluding
almost sentimentally that the original build
ing was “more finished and made with a bet
ter appearance” than the 1856 brick one. He
complimented the ornate window cornices
and glazed paneled doors of the earlier one
and described the first jail which stood on
the grounds as “handsome” with walls of
hand hewn timbers, dove-tailed for strength,
then weather boarded and painted red.
Even so, the sturdy 1856 brick courthouse
served the county for almost a century. The
courthouse square was the center of down
town Perry and a daily meeting place for
local businessmen during the week.
Saturdays were different. Saturday was the
time everyone came to town, and since the
only public restrooms were in the court
house, young entrepreneurs with something
to sell knew that sooner or later most people
would pass their booths on the courthouse
square. Sweets, peanuts, or rummage
sales...whatever the goods, a ready market
waited on the grounds of the courthouse.
And politicians knew that a well-dressed
stage and a free barbecue dinner on the
courthouse lawn would produce apprecia
tive audiences even for long-winded speech-
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The old courthouse square was the site of both the dedication of a monument to the Confederacy and a bill
board honoring the men and women who served in the military in World War 11.
Houston County judicial Complex
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es.
Within the red
brick walls offi
cials guided the
county govern
ment through
periods of pros
perity and
depression,
through peace
time and war,
from the Civil
War through
World War 11.
The courthouse
square was the
site of the dedi
cation of a mon
ument to the
Confederacy as
well as a bill
board to honor
the service men
and women of
World War 11.
When the
wartime ban on
construction
was lifted in
1945, county
commissioners
1909 county officials gather at the well on the courthouse square: George W. Winn, sheriff; Charles
H. Hardison, clerk; R. N. Holtzclaw, attorney; Harris Neal, deputy sheriff; Barney Shilling, coroner
(seated); Robert E. Brown, court solicitor; RH. Skellie, ordinary; Mose Profit, janitor.
Davis, Tom Warren, Wyatt Kersey, Warren
Hodge and Claude Watson levied a 5-mill
tax to begin an account for a new court
house—a visionary move that allowed the
county to pay $325,000 in cash for the com
pleted structure without a loan or bond issue
Because the old courthouse was razed so
that the new one might occupy the historical
site, officials scattered to rented offices, and
court was held in the auditorium of Perry
High School for two years.
Spectators watched the solidly built two
foot-thick walls of the 1856 structure go
down with mixed emotions; a century of
memories echoed through the sights, sounds
and odors of its halls. Even those who
acknowledged its state of decay at the time,
now speculate on the “What ifs?” and agree
that it would be a fine county museum if it
were still standing.
The modem gray stone courthouse erected
in its place was by far the largest public
building ever built in the county, planned
with extra growing room to accommodate
the county’s expected needs for the next
fifty years. Commissioners were criticized
and accused of overbuilding, for no one
envisioned a decade of growth in the Fifties
surpassing that of the World War II Forties
or imagined that the spacious courthouse
would be too small in ten years. Houston
County had grown from 11,303 in 1940 to
20,964 in 1950, to 39,154 in 1960... and in
2002 with population exceeding 110,000,
that growth shows no signs of slowing
down.
More Photos
on Page 12A
November 14,2002