HISTORIC STRUCTURE GETTING AN INTERIOR RENOVATION
por Lisa Wittmeyer
Curator, Ben Ferrel Museum
Earlier this summer I joined Wes Minder, Platte County administrator, as he led Platte County Associate Circuit Judge Quint Shafer, and Abe Shafer who retired as a Platte County Circuit Judge, on a walk through the Platte County Courthouse as it was undergoing renovation.
Guided also by historic features recently uncovered, our tour became a walk back in time.
With furnishings and partitions removed, we could see clearly the interior’s prominent feature—outer walls of locally-fired bricks that, for budgetary reasons, were never plastered when the courthouse was built in 1866-1867.
In his chronicle The Annals of Platte County, William Paxton, an attorney and pioneer citizen, announced benchmarks in the building’s construction related to this 15-16-inch-thick brickwork. On Aug. 1, 1866, it was underway; by Sept. 8, it reached the second story, and on Nov. 1, this brickwork was complete.
Minder pointed out that fire-retardant materials were being prioritized in current renovations, a precaution shared no doubt by the county officials who decided to build this courthouse in brick. Their first courthouse, after all, had burned down.
Built in 1841 (the interior finished in 1842), this approximately $15,000 structure measured 50 x 50 feet and had two offices flanking a court room below a second-floor central meeting hall. In its first year, several churches began meeting and citizens enjoyed a December ball here. The city soon contracted for a bridge to span the Platte River at Main Street, having already ordered the building of a mile-long road from here to the Military Road that connected Fort Leavenworth to Liberty.
Before long a hotel was built nearby, its restaurant frequented by those who visited the courthouse. It was becoming not only a place for county business and gatherings, but a catalyst in the town’s growth.
Twenty years later, on a December night in 1861, Union soldiers led by Colonel W. James Morgan set fire to many of the town’s buildings. They were retaliating against activities by Confederates and those who supported them.
“We thought the fire had run its course,” writes Paxton, “when a small flame appeared on the apex of the [courthouse’s] cupola, where the iron spire left it.” The courthouse was ruined.
After the Civil War, county officials employed Peter McDuff of Weston to draft plans for their new courthouse. He had designed Clay County’s courthouse in Liberty which was completed in around 1859 and replaced in 1934.
By May, 1867, contractor J.A. McGonigle finished building McDuff’s vision, a Federal style structure in a rough cross layout. It cost $88,500 with additional funds spent for furnishings that included carpeting, spittoons, chairs, a clock and two chandeliers. This new courthouse like the previous one served for county business, community meetings and occasional events held also in the yard outside which had been graded and enclosed by a low stone wall.
During subsequent modifications in 1908, 1912, the 1950s, ’60s and 70s, original features were updated, removed (like the yard wall), expanded, covered up or uncovered. In the 1970s, during demolition of a northwest corner added in the prior decade, for example, the original cornerstone was found. It had been inscribed by a masonic order and dated June 20, 1866.
A little over a century later, on May 17, 1978, another cornerstone was laid by several local masons (over 100 fellow masons in attendance) for a north-side, three-story annex. This project, funded by a voter-approved bond (the first to pass since the courthouse had been built), tripled office space and replaced the outdated jail. This project included removing the early 1900’s additions on the southeast and southwest sides. This returned the building to its original cross design. The three arched entry doors also were restored and the exterior white paint removed.
On dedication day, hundreds of citizens enjoyed a parade down Main Street and a band concert on the courthouse lawn.
So too in 1867, an “immense crowd,” according to Paxton, attended the courthouse’s opening, a Valentine’s Day event featuring a carousel and dancing.
When people entered the lobby back then, they would have passed by iron columns now painted white. Further into the building they would have walked over wood plank floors uncovered during the present renovations as we saw on the second floor.
Although many partition walls had been removed on this floor, Abe Shafer pointed out where rooms had been located, their use and who worked within them.
Abe Shafer’s first experiences at the courthouse, after all, began in the 1940s. As a boy he accompanied his mother when she had business at county offices. He even observed a trial here before he attended law school.
He began practicing law in Platte County in 1968 and later served sequentially as assistant prosecuting attorney, prosecuting attorney, magistrate judge and associate circuit judge before retiring as a circuit judge in 2013.
On such a warm day as our tour, it wasn’t surprising that one of his memories was how the courtrooms had air conditioning installed in the 1960s. Because of this, many judges from other counties transferred cases here for summertime trials with Platte County juries. This continued well into the 1970s.
Abe Shafer spoke of learning from mentors like the late Judge Jay B. Wilson who long before then in 1944, had acted as prosecutor for Abe’s father, Abe Shafer III, after he was elected to this position while serving as a lieutenant in the Navy during WWII. He passed away in 1945 while still in service and when Abe was only two years old.
Shafer spoke with admiration as well of other colleagues at the courthouse. They included Platte County attorneys John Coots, Robert Clevenger, James Farley, Bill Lay, R.B. Miller, Jr., John Moore, Judge R.P.C. Wilson III, Judge John Yeaman and Don Witt.
An advocate for local history, Farley authored several books about the Civil War in this region and so likely supported the courthouse’s listing to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.
As we descended the east stairway from the mezzanine and entered the lobby, sunlight streamed through the entry doors’ arched transom windows, the wavy-appearing 19th century glass recently scraped clean of old paint and the wood frames restored. Minder described how some of the wood molding high above us would frame a new tin ceiling to restore the architectural intent of the original one, a feature that had been removed over the years and replaced by drop ceilings.
Many people have passed through this lobby, from the famous like Platte City’s native son Guy B. Park, who became Missouri’s 38th governor, and the infamous like Blanche Barrow of the Bonnie and Clyde gang, to the curious like James “Frosty” Irons, a trustee who disappeared one day, explained Shafer, only to be found some 20 years later imprisoned in another state.
Shafer remembered also Robert “Greek” Browning who operated a shoeshine stand from 1942-1969. Leslie Dyer, a former circuit clerk, donated the stand’s chair for visitors to continue to see in the lobby. A sign notes that the chair’s railings were made from the courthouse’s original stairway bannisters. Minder plans to keep the chair on display when the courthouse reopens.
The majority of those who passed through this building, however, have been individuals simply transacting county business or attending court.
One of the more notorious cases involved an in-court shooting by litigants from Clinton County in 1895, perhaps the only one, ever, in the entire nation, over the sale of pigs. The victim, James Winn, later died. Although tragic and unusual, this story nonetheless recalls the opening era of this courthouse when most people’s livelihoods were tied to agriculture.
We ended our group tour outside. Above us, workers on scaffolding were addressing architectural details in the cornice area near the roof. This scene brought to mind how the courthouse has been a majestic backdrop for many events. These have ranged from election night gatherings held, as Shafer recalled, from the 1940s to the 1970s, with election results chalked on a blackboard in front of the courthouse doors, to holiday lighting ceremonies that still occur annually here on Thanksgiving Eve.
Before I left, Minder led me back even further in time to when construction of the building began. From the basement of the north annex, where it meets the old courthouse, we observed its limestone foundation which is exposed at its base. This massive foundation illustrates tangibly that this structure was built to last many centuries.
David Fitzimmons, one of the architects overseeing the 1970’s expansion, once wrote, “Life within the courthouse is closely intertwined with the life in the community and this constitutes the thousand little histories within this one building, on top of the agonies of the Civil War which led to its construction.”
The current $2.7 million project to modernize and renovate the courthouse involves much more than is mentioned here. It is expected to be completed by October 2025, over 150 years since the first foundation stone was set and since the little histories of this courthouse began to be told. Many more will surely be recorded by future generations.
