(upbeat music) - [Narrator] "Illinois Stories" is brought to you by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Illinois Arts Council Agency, and by the support of viewers like you.

Thank you.

- Hello, welcome to "Illinois Stories."

I'm Mark McDonald in Carthage on the grounds of the Hancock County Courthouse which is celebrating 100 years.

Well, they're very proud of this courthouse in Hancock County, and they've got every right to be as you're gonna get a tour of this courthouse today with some of the folks that have worked here, still work here, are in here every day, and give tours of this beautiful 1908 courthouse.

And there's some interesting stories that go along with it as well.

Retired Circuit Judge Steve Evans, you've spent a lot of time in this courthouse as you have in many courthouses around the state.

What's so special about this one?

- Well, first as you can see, it's just an absolutely beautiful courthouse from the outside.

As you go inside, you're going to find it has classic courtrooms.

The interior is beautiful in every respect, there's a lot of marble, marble wainscoting, wrought iron on the stairs, the mahogany wood.

It's just an absolutely beautiful, beautiful structure, and it's unique in Illinois, there aren't too many that are like this one.

- I mentioned the fact that, of course, being a retired judge, you've spent your time in courtrooms, but beyond that, you and your dad used to go around the state and visit courtrooms 'cause he was just fascinated with them as well.

- My father loved local history and he liked the courthouses, and I traveled with him when I was young and I've been in almost every courthouse in the state of Illinois.

And so that gives me some perspective and there are some other lovely ones around in Western Illinois as well, but this one really stands out.

As a lawyer, when I first came here and I looked at that courtroom and I saw some lawyers in there I thought this is where I want to go and argue cases.

This is the kind of courtroom I want to be in.

- Well, we're gonna see, actually there's two courtrooms in this courthouse.

We're gonna concentrate on the big one because it's easier to get, really it's more impressive, isn't it?

- Yes.

- But like you say, you've seen a lot of courthouses and you're not the only one in this community that appreciates this, because there is a celebration for the 100 years.

Before we talk about the features here, let's talk just a little bit about the history of this.

Why was this courthouse built in 1908 on this site?

- There was a courthouse on this same site built in 1839 that replaced a log building that was across the street over here built in 1833.

And the 1839 courthouse by the late 1800s, was starting to deteriorate pretty badly and about everyone in the county liked the idea of building a new courthouse, except for the expense.

So in 1901, the County Board of Supervisors appointed a committee to make recommendations about the building of a new courthouse.

And they came back that summer with a recommendation that a new courthouse be constructed, that the cost target should be in the neighborhood of 125 to $150,000.

They said the old courthouse was dangerous to the citizens who came to transact business and it was also a risk to all of the records that were kept here, particularly the land records.

The interesting thing about that report is that it didn't talk about where the courthouse was to be built, and there'd been some dispute in this county for many years between the interest in Warsaw and the interest in Carthage.

In 1849 Warsaw had attempted to remove the courthouse and on a two-to-one vote lost that effort.

After the committee recommended a new courthouse in 1901, there was a referendum in 1902 to move the courthouse, remove the courthouse to Warsaw.

Warsaw was a larger community, and Warsaw received over 5,000 votes in, excuse me, over 4,000 votes in that election, and Carthage received around 3,600 votes, about 46%.

But the constitution at that time said you had to get 60% if you were removing from a central location.

If you were removing from a remote location to a central location, it only took 50%.

It didn't get that number, so as of 1902, Carthage was the location.

In 1904 there was a bond issue voted in the county.

It was defeated by about 600 votes.

In 1906 they came right back with another one and it passed by 179 votes.

So as of 1906, we had a location selected and we had a means of finance selected and the citizens of Carthage moved very quickly.

By 1907, the cornerstone was laid, the construction was started and dedication in 1908.

- And they moved very quickly because they knew that Warsaw might be trying to grab that again and they wanted to get that- - Warsaw had the numbers.

It had larger numbers and who knows what laws might change through that process, and yes, they wanted to be very sure that it was here.

In that 1902 election, both cities offered incentives.

The City of Carthage said, we'll give you free water and a free sewer, we'll build sidewalks, we'll maintain the grounds, and we'll give you $10,000.

Warsaw said, we'll give you $80,000, and so I suppose it's not unlike what we see today, cities competing for new industries.

But in this instance, Carthage won out and got the building here, and as a result the county seat has been here since.

- [Mark] Let's point out some of the features of this beautiful building.

I think one of the first thing that really draws your eye is the dome and the statue at the top.

And also the fact that you have four clock faces up there.

But let's talk about the statue at the top.

Let's start working our way down, right?

What is she supposed to signify?

- [Steve] The statuette is Lady Justice, or the Lady of Justice, and as a common symbol for justice we see throughout this country.

We often see a person blindfolded, holding the scales of justice and you can see she has in her left hand the scales of justice there.

So it's a general symbol of justice that we have in the United States throughout the country.

And Lady Justice is, I think, about 12 feet tall, she is made of zinc.

She is standing on a pedestal that is roughly five feet tall, and she faces to the South.

We have looked for a good reason to explain that facing to the South and there's been a lot of speculation, but no one has an absolute reason for that.

Perhaps the south side of the square was more impressive at that time, or perhaps that's just the way the builders decided to put her up there when they got to it.

- [Mark] What about the clock faces?

- [Steve] The clock faces were, where you see the clock now, were just wood.

They had planned for a clock in 1908, but they didn't have the money at that time.

So it was put aside and it was discussed off and on, but it didn't get done until 1987, nearly 80 years later.

The Carthage Kiwanis Club took this on as a project to put the clock faces up there, and they worked diligently along with other service organizations and other people in the community, and so the clocks with chimes went up in 1987.

I don't know if the chimes will be working today.

- [Mark] Well, we should know in a minute, because it says 11 o'clock straight up.

- Well, let's not count on it today, but when they do work, they're beautiful.

- They're beautiful.

Now it also looks as we work our way down, it's very intricate, it looks like there's a shield or some kind of a, I'm not sure what that's supposed to signify.

It almost looks like the outline of the county or a state or something.

Do we know what that is?

- [Steve] We don't; the architect who did the work was from Detroit, Michigan, and we have very little information about why they did particular things.

And we've looked at those but we can't see that they are any particular symbol.

I've wondered if perhaps they were a Masonic symbol, because the Masons were very strong here at the time.

but we don't know of anything with regard to those.

It's just, as far as we know, just decoration.

- [Mark] You all have been able to keep this building in, fundamentally, the same condition and the same style that it was in 1908.

Unfortunately, you weren't able to keep the tiles on the roof, were you?

- No, the roof was originally red tiles and I didn't ever have the privilege of seeing that, or at least as I remember, but the pictures were beautiful.

But in the 1960s the tiles had come to be in very bad shape, they were dangerous for falling, and so there was discussion of a new roof, there was some controversy about it but they went with a shingled roof.

Now, I can tell you that there's still ongoing discussion about the possibility of going back up and doing a tile roof, and it would be a wonderful thing, but expense is the big factor on that.

- Yeah, well, let's walk over and take a look at the cornerstone 'cause there's a story there.

But what I think is amazing as we do that is the fact that this came in under budget, didn't it?

- [Steve] Yes, it did.

The original budget for the courthouse and the bond issue in 1904 was $125,000.

And it came in at 117,000 and change, so it's about a $7,000 margin.

Now they did have to do furnishings and the furnishings took the cost up to somewhere around 129,000.

But we had a person here a few years ago who was looking at the courthouse and said that the woodwork alone inside would probably cost more than that today.

- [Mark] It's a bargain.

- [Steve] Relatively, yes.

There were certainly people at the time I'm sure who thought it was an unnecessary and an extravagant expense, but when it got all said and done, they liked it.

- [Mark] Well, it's gorgeous.

So you've got a new heating VAC system here.

- The heating system was put in in the 1980s.

Prior to that time, the heating was supplied by a boiler plant across the street, and there's an underground tunnel about four feet in height and the electrical system and the heating system all ran through that tunnel and provided heat, electric, water to the courthouse.

Now, in the 1980s, the central air system was put in and as you'll see when we get up in the courthouse, the planners did a really good job of doing that so that they preserved the look of the old without making some major change inside.

- Now, we mentioned the cornerstone.

You also mentioned the Masons and they're mentioned on the cornerstones.

Now, I like this story because we're talking about this beautiful Bedford limestone, which is what constitutes this building, and that came from, that's mined in Indiana, and of course a lot of people are familiar with that.

But with the cornerstone, there's a time capsule in there.

- Yes, there is.

- And fact, you tried to find out what was in it at one point.

- We did, because we wanted to do a new time capsule and we are going to do that for the centennial celebration here in a couple of weeks.

But we wanted to open the old.

Now, we have from a Judge Schofield's history in 1921 the information about its contents, one item of which, incidentally, was a sample of seed corn.

And I was really curious as to see how that seed corn had survived a hundred years with some other documents.

So we wanted to open this and we knew it was in stone, so we contacted our local county contractor who is very skilled in doing large buildings.

And they came down one Sunday afternoon with their equipment and their saws, and they cut and they cut and they cut and they couldn't get into it.

And we even, we have a lady on our committee, one of whose ancestors was involved with the building of this.

She brought the plans in so we could spread those plans out on the sidewalk and looked at them to see what is our access.

Well, they still couldn't get in so they came back a few days later with better saws and better blades, and they still couldn't get it removed.

So the cornerstone is still there and what's interesting to me is that the cornerstone was dedicated in July 30th of 1907.

And when they put it in there, the statement was that this stone is laid today, never to be removed, except by the ravages of time or by prosperity.

And so I guess we haven't had either the prosperity or the ravages of time yet, and the cornerstone has stayed.

But we did try.

And you mentioned the Masonics, again, the Masonic influence was quite significant during that time.

And as you'll inside the courthouse, there was an area set aside for a Masonic memorial to Civil War soldiers as well.

- Pat Byers, you work in this beautiful building.

- Yes.

- And you're a court reporter, but you're also on the centennial committee so you know a lot about this building.

- Quite a bit.

- If you come in from the east or the west side you're sort of steered onto the ground floor.

And if you get into the middle of the building, like we are right here, and you look up, you get a chance to see that beautiful glass that's at the top of the dome.

- [Pat] Right?

Wow!

- [Mark] Wow is right.

And what do we have, is we have spiral, I'm not sure what those are called, the portals that you look through here and balustrades that you can lean on and look up and look down from any of the floors in the courthouse.

- Correct.

- What do we know about this glass?

It's just gorgeous.

- If you can see, the pattern is called fish scale and then there are pieces of gold intermingled in there that really help highlight it.

- [Mark] It sure does, my goodness.

And it just looks immense from here.

When we looked at it from the outside we could see that the dome was big, but it just didn't hit you this way.

- [Pat] Well, of course, the dome that you see from the outside is above that.

There's space in between this dome and the outer dome.

- Right, so what we're seeing here is we're seeing the inside of the dome.

Outside we saw the outside of the dome and between the two are lights that illuminate this.

So that's not really being illuminated by outside light, it's being illuminated by artificial light behind it.

- Not really.

- It's not?

There's no light up there?

- No, there are three or four lights that were put up but I'm not sure they're even functioning right now.

- Wow!

- And part of the light that you're seeing has kind of leaked through because they had to board it up above it because of pigeons and the damage they caused.

- Yeah, so this light or this glass is protected from the outside elements?

- Yes, it is.

- Yeah, it'll never hail damage or anything - No, no.

- that would bother it?

It's beautiful and probably as you go higher and higher, and you get closer and closer to it, it gets more vivid all the time.

It's really great to get a look at it from this vantage point.

- [Pat] There's a lot of people that stand here and take pictures, lots of pictures.

Even maybe lay on the floor and take pictures.

- Well, Pat, we mentioned the entrances to this building.

Downstairs, we entered from the east and the west.

We're on the second floor now and if you come up the north or the south stairs it brings you up here.

And we're looking down to where we were just now just a moment ago.

- Yes.

- But let's take a walk around this circle here and we can walk up to the... To really some of the highlights of this building.

It's really a grand staircase with the brass knobs and the beautiful iron work.

The wooden balustrade.

But the stained glass and the Art Deco glass is what really sorta sets this building apart - Yes, it really does.

- in many ways, doesn't it?

- [Pat] Yes, this is a very beautiful window.

- It sure is, and what's interesting about this, I thought that was the outside of the building and that was an exterior window, but it's not, is it?

- No, no, there's an office behind it.

- With big windows that lets the light in.

- Right.

- And this window looks different from the other side, doesn't it?

- [Pat] Yes.

- [Mark] How is that?

- Well, I think it's maybe because it's either a baked glass or Art Deco glass, they call it, as opposed to stained glass.

So when you first look at it you think it's stained glass, but it's my understanding it's Art Deco.

- And she is Lady Justice, of course, and she also sits atop of the building - Yes.

- above the dome.

- [Pat] Yes.

- [Mark] And then also, if you look straight up, you're treated again too, because you've got another showcase piece of glass on not only that ceiling, but on each side as well.

- [Pat] Correct, and above this in the attic is a skylight just for this stained glass that you're looking at to let the light come through.

- [Mark] Man, that architect thought of everything, didn't he?

- Yes.

(Mark chuckles) And the Eagles, you notice the Eagles here and there's Eagles depicted in the dome in the courtroom on the third floor too.

And then the stained glass half moon also.

- Yeah, on each side.

- [Pat] which allow, again I think, for a little extra lighting to come in to this area.

- Well Judge, we're in the middle of a trial, they just took time for lunch, didn't they?

- Yes they are, they're on a lunch break.

- The courtroom is working, and if you see if it looks like it's, there's water and papers and stuff here, that's because there really is a trial going on.

- There is a jury trial going on at the present time with 12 good citizens of Hancock County who will be seated right over here in the jury box.

When the jurors come in, the (indiscernible), the group of 40 or 50 or 60 are seated back in the back part, and this originally would seat 202 people.

We've cut out some space to so we have wheelchair access and people with walkers can get in the front row.

But the jurors are selected and sit here, the attorneys are at counsel table.

Years ago when we would come in here, the attorneys whose case was on trial, not in a jury, would sit here, and those of us who were waiting for our case to be called would sit over along the wall or in these chairs over here not used for that any longer.

The bench behind us is for the clerk of the circuit court, and he marks witness exhibits and swears witnesses and he would generally sit here.

And then the judge sits in the very tall chair up there behind the bench.

Our circuit clerk is now moved over here because he's got his computer here.

Our court reporter uses this area here, and then the witness will sit in the chair here closest to the jurors so that the jurors hopefully are able to hear the witness better when they testify.

Because of all of the hard surfaces, sound does bounce a bit in this room and it takes some getting used to when you first come in here first doing a case, but we quickly adapt to it and learn the lesson.

- This room, as the rest of the courthouse, has very little changed from 1908.

And one of the first things you notice when you come in here is this really glorious dome, this lighted glass dome.

- It is, and this dome does have a skylight to your left that helps light it, but it also has four or five backlights on it.

And the other domes don't have any backlight on them.

So on a gloomy day or even in the evening, the glass in this dome still shows up very, very well.

- And we've seen this trim in the ceiling before, this gold trim.

It's just gorgeous and it just seems to just sorta light things up.

- It really is, and this courtroom was repainted, I believe, in 2001 and kept very close to designs before.

There were some changes, but they've kept all of the little scroll work or what you see, the decorative work and it really makes the, it goes well and sits well against the dark mahogany wood that is in here.

If it were all dark or paneled, this would be a pretty dark room, but this helps.

- One of the changes you wanted to make to make this room more comfortable and just more functional was to add air conditioning, 'cause it gets pretty hot up here.

- It gets very hot, and I believe we're looking at the west side, so in the afternoons in the summertime, in August, this was not a fun place to be, and there was no air conditioning even into the 1980s.

So we would open the windows and we would set up a large fan over there that was roughly the size of a Piper Cub and it would blow papers, but they decided finally to put in air conditioning.

And when they did, there was a concern as to how are they going to bring those air conditioning ducts into this room and not change the beauty of the room.

And they did a marvelous and imaginative job and you can see in places along some of the beams here where they put those narrow slots for the air conditioning.

So we have comfort and we don't have a distortion of what was a beautiful, beautiful room.

- Yeah, yeah.

And you mentioned the mahogany, and as we look back behind, for instance, behind the judge's desk there.

That beautiful, I guess it's called a mantle with the pillars and the decoration on the wood, it's just gorgeous.

And it looks like it looks as shiny as if it were just came out of the mill.

- Again, the building is well-maintained.

Compliments to the board for having that interest and we've had a number of people in the maintenance department here who really take it seriously and are proud of the way it looks.

So I will pass that compliment on to them, but they do, they polish the wood and it does look nice.

With the chairs back here, they put new veneer on some of them.

Hopefully we'll get the rest of them veneered as well.

But it's a courtroom to me as a lawyer, as I said before, where I come in and think this is the place where I want to work as a lawyer or as a judge, in a room like this.

- Yeah, it's gorgeous.

Well, Dave Walker, thanks for the invitation.

You're the chairman of the County board, right?

- That's correct.

- And you're really looking forward to this hundredth anniversary of this building.

- I really am, it's gonna be a great opportunity to show our beautiful courthouse to people from all over the state.

- You told me that this was one of the most beautiful courthouses, and you know what?

After seeing it, I kinda have to agree with you.

- It definitely is one of the top five is what I've been told all my life, so.

- We were just down in the courtroom and we got a chance to see that dome, that beautiful stained glass.

And this is what it looks like if you're walking up to the top of the building, which we're doing now.

And it's really neat to be able to see how these are constructed, and of course, the skylight right above it gives you chance to.

- [Dave] The artisanship from back in 1908 is amazing.

It just really is.

- [Mark] It really is, and actually we can see if we walk by here, we can even see the big dome, the big glass dome that you see from... From the first floor.

This is how this is constructed, and of course, again, portals to just allow all this natural light to flood in here.

And this dome, I guess, is not suspended.

It's actually sitting on a ledge, isn't it?

- [Dave] Yes.

- [Mark] And it's got some lights above it, which are not now on, to illuminate it.

But isn't it something to be able to come up here and see how all this is put together?

- [Dave] So you can see some of the steel girders up there.

- Above the windows, yeah, yeah.

Right, okay, so there is steel up here as well as a lot of wood construction.

Now, you know you're gonna have a lot of people wanting to take tours of this building, but what's really nice for us is that we get a chance to go into some pretty places where you wouldn't allow the public just for safety reasons.

But if we go up one more level, we get a chance to see what's inside the clock tower.

- Yeah, that's correct.

- Okay, can we do that next?

- Yes, we sure can.

- All right, let's do that.

Wow!

Well, you gotta work hard for... - [Dave] I'll tell you what- - For big rewards, don't you?

(Mark chuckles) - [Dave] Round's a shape, you know?

- Okay, Dave, well, when we were outside we saw the clock faces, you know, and, oh yeah, let's put that back.

Or put it in your pocket, that's okay.

That's just your a microphone transmitter.

We saw the clock faces.

- Yeah.

- And if we get up here, now we're in the clock tower.

- Right.

- And on all four sides, you can see that what you and the Kiwanis have done here have built these faces, put them in the holes, and on the outside of those are the clock faces we saw from out there back in 1987.

- [Dave] '87, and then we noticed about four years ago they were starting to fade, so we came up here and took all the faces out, put them back down in here, repainted them all, and then re-installed them all back into the- - Is that right?

- Yeah, that was a job.

- Now this is the control.

This controls the clock faces, right?

So this is your master here.

What does a courthouse do if they wanna find somebody that puts in a clock for them?

- Well, I suppose, you Google it, I suppose.

We were lucky to find somebody back in '87 who we knew he had done some others in Indiana and Kentucky.

And we just happened to luck into the guy.

and he'd built our mechanism and our drives and everything.

- And he's from where, did you say?

Minnesota?

- He's from Faribault, Minnesota.

- Minnesota.

You get a guy like that, you wanna hang onto him.

You hope that if this ever breaks, you can contact him.

- [Dave] In fact, it did break a year ago.

Last November, it broke November of '07.

And so we shipped it off and we got it back and then we put it back in and the clocks are working again now.

- That's great.

Hey, let's go over and see what kind of view we get from up here, 'cause we're probably a hundred, what?

A hundred feet off the- - I'd say we're close to a hundred feet off the ground, yes.

- [Mark] And we're right in the middle of the town square so you kind of get a good layout of Carthage from here and what it looks like.

- [Dave] There's a lot of churches in proximity to the courthouse.

The post office is right between the two churches.

That's the Baptist Church and the Emmanuel Lutheran Church.

The grade school's on over just north of the Baptist Church.

- [Mark] Yeah.

And we're looking, what?

Northeast from here?

- [Dave] Looking Northeast, yes.

- It's pretty, very pretty.

And you know, you get the pleasure, don't you, of every what, twice a year, when we have to change the clocks?

You get to come up here and do- - Yeah, the Kiwanis Club's kinda made me the clock guru, I guess.

So I get the privilege of climbing up the steps and getting a friend of mine to be on the ground to tell me when to stop so I know I've got the clock set correctly.

- 'Cause you have to disconnect- - Yeah, you gotta disconnect the drives and then you see them spinning.

You can see the mechanism spin.

- And somebody down below has to say, okay- - Stop!

Right there, stop!

No, you went too far, back it up!

(Mark chuckles) You're turning this little crank underneath the clock mechanism.

You're trying to get it just where it needs to be, so.

- [Mark] Yeah, well it's about that time again.

- It is, end of October - Every spring and every fall.

- [Dave] we're gonna be changing them again.

In the fall, back.

(Mark chuckles) - Well, thanks for bringing us up here.

- Hey man, my pleasure.

I really appreciate you guys coming.

- You bet.

You know, you are welcome to tour this courthouse.

You may not get to come up here, but you can see all the other wonderful things that we've seen during this program as they celebrate the 100th anniversary of their courthouse here in Carthage.

With another Illinois story in Carthage, I'm Mark McDonald.

Thanks for watching.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] "Illinois Stories" is brought to you by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Illinois Arts Council Agency, and by the support of viewers like you.

Thank you.

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