A History of the Howell County Courthouse

From 1869 through 1882, Howell County public business was conducted in a tiny 720-square-foot (24 x 30-foot) wooden single-story building. Built by T.E. Britton on the south side of the square, the building was divided into three rooms and cost $1,200. Alice Carey Risley wrote of attending a dance and participating in a quadrille in the “new” courthouse. She mentioned that the couples could only dance two pairs at a time, directly across from each other. Sounds cramped.

 

The Rolla New Era wrote in 1880 that West Plains contains about four hundred inhabitants. Three general and two drug stores, one steam flouring mill, two wagon factories, one cabinet shop, one tin and hardware store, one silversmith, two hotels, four blacksmith shops, three carpenter and joinder shops, one saddlery, two school buildings, one newspaper, two churches, one Masonic hall, one Odd Fellows and one Good Templars hall. The population would soon double.

 

County government quickly outgrew its public building as the population increased, and by the 1880s, it was forced to use a church building to hold court. With the arrival of the Kansas City, Fort Scott, and Memphis railroad in Howell County in 1882, a population and business boom was underway. Also in progress since the beginning of the year was a campaign to build a new courthouse.

 

In April 1882, a proposition to build a new courthouse for fifteen thousand dollars was defeated by a vote of 382 against, 208 for. The Rolla Express opined, “If the people of Howell County would try a whack at a five-thousand-dollar house, it is our opinion they would carry it and they could build a house fifty feet square and two stories high for that money by using their own lumber.”

 

In November 1882, the Missouri Cash-Book in Jackson, Missouri, reported a second effort to pass the spending of fifteen thousand had been successful, writing, “They now hold court in a church house out in Howell County. However, at the recent elections, the people of Howell severed church and state by voting to build a $15,000 courthouse.” 

 

A special term of the county court was called December 29, 1882, where plans drawn by nineteen-year-old Henry H. Hohenschild were accepted, and the judges agreed that the “long way of the building be east and west.” A group of dissenters disagreed with the court’s decision to place the courthouse in the middle of the square, which they believed would detract from the beauty of the square.

 

In October 1883, the Rolla New Era told its readers, “Any person wishing to bid on the construction of the Howell County courthouse can see plans and specifications at the office of Henry Hohenschild. Henry was paid two hundred dollars for his plans featuring novel facades on all four sides of the building.

 

German-American Hohenschild was born in St. Louis in 1861, the youngest of seven children, and received a public education in the Soulard neighborhood in the south end of the city. In 1881, a fire destroyed his office in St. Louis, and he moved to Rolla and set up shop, with Howell County being one of his early clients. Henry’s family were butchers, but his interest in architecture led him, as a boy, to a job as a clerk and technical draftsman with an architectural firm in his early teens. He was listed in the St. Louis city directory in 1882 as an architect and quickly developed a successful practice.

 

Henry made many trips on horseback between Rolla and West Plains to oversee the construction. His diligence to duty led the mostly self-trained Hohenschild to design an additional ten courthouses in Missouri, as well as many public and private business buildings. He was appointed State Architect. Though the railroad arrived in West Plains on Christmas Day 1882, it did not connect us to Rolla.

 

In March 1883, a contract for the construction of the new courthouse was awarded to George Goodlander of Fort Scott, Kansas, for the sum of $15,600, but two weeks later, the court added another $1,000 for his labor.

 

In May 1883, bids on the bonds to finance the project were taken, and a group of West Plains’ businessmen bought them for resale, mainly outside the county. In a June session of the county court, an order was issued to the sheriff to have a lock put on the door of the new building.

 

The new three-story red brick building measured 65 by 65 feet, with three stories, and a final cost of $16,600. On the fourth of July 1883, the cornerstone ceremonies took place, and the county accepted the completed building on January 14, 1884. The second floor was reserved for the courtroom, and the top floor was leased to the local Mt. Zion Masonic lodge, with the lodge being responsible for furnishing its floor. At least one office on the first floor was rented to a local attorney. 

 

Interestingly, a jail was not included in the courthouse plans but was relocated to another building on the square. The temporary courthouse building 

 

Fast forward to Friday the 13th, 1928, a pleasant evening in April turned tragic when the Bond Building on East Main Street in West Plains was destroyed in a massive explosion at 11:04 p.m. Over fifty people were in attendance at a dance on the second floor. The blast, collapse of the building, and fire killed thirty-seven of the attendees. 

 

Another casualty of the blast was the Howell County Courthouse, immediately across the street. Structural damage to the courthouse was so severe that the building was immediately condemned. The West Plains Gazette reported less than a month later, "The courthouse will shortly be moved, not to Willow Springs, but to the Methodist Church building at the corner of Washington and Cleveland avenues. Here, several of the county offices will be housed, and sessions of the circuit court and county court will be held. In fact, this will be known and designated as the Howell County Courthouse." The article went on to say that the county records would remain in the vault in the damaged courthouse until new vaults could be constructed in the basement of the church. 

 

The June term of Circuit Court went off without a hitch despite a war that raged between the north and south ends of the county over the future location of a new courthouse that would have to be built. Each week, the newspapers hurled invective aimed at each other and the occupants of the opposing communities. For good measure, the Pomona Booster Club weighed in on the side of West Plains, after Willow Springs urged them to sign a petition in their favor. The Gazette reported on May 17, "The refusal of the Pomona Club to back the removal project has given the stunt quite a setback."

 

The October term of Circuit Court in the church building was again reported by the Howell County Gazette: "It didn't seem like the same old court to those who have been coming for many years to the county seat at every regular term of circuit court. Holding court in an old church does not seem natural. In the early days of this county, court was held under a tree or in a blacksmith shop with the blacksmith's anvil as the bar of justice. There is no room for hob-nobbying in the church, and court loafers and jurymen loaf on the adjacent streets and the vacant lot just south of the church." Ironically, the one case tried on opening day was an assault case from Willow Springs.

 

Justice and county business suffered through the winter of 1928. In the spring of 1929, the county commission, then known as the county court and its commissioners as county judges, set about resolving the issue. Two of the judges had never seen the damage. Incredibly, the building was still being used to some extent. In the Recorder's Office, they found Miss Mabel Kirkpatrick on duty. She explained she had to return there because she could not find a safe place to put the records. She told the judges, "This old place is dangerous. The other morning, I heard the walls cracking and popping, and I was almost tempted to jump out of the open window." In the Collector's Office, they found that the collector had also attempted to stay there. He told them he had had no fears of the building falling and stayed when the others left until he found a large crack that appeared on the west wall overnight, and all the plaster on the walls and the floor. He moved out immediately. 

 

The judges agreed that the building was unsafe but were divided in their opinion of the action to take. One judge sought to remodel the building at minimal cost, another attempted to tear it down, and the judge from the Northern District advocated for building a new courthouse at Willow Springs.

 

The following week, the judges went to Willow Springs and met in the director's room of the State Bank with prominent members of the community. There, the county was promised a $50,000 surety bond and deed for fifty acres of land for a building site. No action was taken, as any decision of this nature would take a two-thirds majority of the county voters to approve.

 

In June 1929, a proposal to issue $125,000 in bonds to build a new courthouse was put before the people. A majority of 2,100 yes votes in West Plains, compared to only 33 no votes, was impressive, but not enough, as the vote in all the north county precincts was similarly one-sided, against the proposition. 

 

Not to be deterred, the bond issue was put before the voters again in September. The Howell County Gazette again reported a failure to pass: "There were several things that stood in the way of building a new courthouse and keeping Howell County among the progressive counties in this section of the state. Chiefly, there was the opposition and hostile action in Willow Springs. To intimidate persons there who wanted to vote for the bonds, a dummy was hanged in effigy. A placard on the dummy read 'He Voted YES.' After the dummy was cut down, it was attached to the rear of a truck and dragged along the principal streets."

The paper went on to report, "The bringing of politics into this election had much to do with defeating the bonds. There were voters who resented the action of the county court in first ordering the notice for the election printed in its 'pet' newspapers, two of which did nothing for the bond issue, and ignoring newspapers favoring and openly working for the new courthouse. Later, seeing their mistake, the court made new orders. Other voters opposed the bond issue because they didn't think the county court was big enough to handle the job of building a new courthouse."

 

A third attempt at passing a bond issue in January 1930 was a resounding defeat. The Gazette reported it was "not only a defeat but a Waterloo." The article went on to complain that the notice of the election was advertised in only one newspaper of small circulation, and no further notice of the election was given. It also accused partisans in Willow Springs of threatening to publish the names of those voting in the paper. Willow Springs had the most remarkable turnout of any precinct county-wide, with 1105 against, and 22 for the issue.

 

In May 1930, the county court considered the proposal of a Springfield architect to repair the building. The plans included replacing all floors and partitions with fireproof materials and covering the outer walls with stucco. The estimated cost was $45,000 - almost half the price of a new building. In the end, the judges decided to let the new court, to be elected in November of that year, take up the torch.

 

In the coming years, the effects of the Great Depression were to have a greater influence in keeping any form of tax or bond initiative from passing than the old north-south war in the county. By 1933, the focus was on razing the old courthouse building in the middle of the square. The hindrance of the depression now became the county's salvation. In December 1933, the Civilian Works Administration allocated and paid for over 300 workers, men employed for one month at the rate of 35 cents an hour, to demolish the old building that was now 50 years old.

 

We have one more courthouse to go. We will look at it in the next issue.