OK Historic Courthouse’s Last Chance
January 22nd, 2009Note: My trackpad button is sticking on my MacBook. I hate to write anything negative about this computer because it – along with the Apple company – has treated me splendidly for over two years. Further, I could fill incredible scroll bar’s lengths of blog telling you all of the things I love about this computer. But imagine how difficult it would be to get anything done on your computer if the mouse button was clicking everything it touched. Needless to stay I will be scheduling an appointment with a genius…and keeping the post short today!
On to the post:
Oklahoma County’s beautiful old courthouse was a treasure and one worth keeping. And it would seem that when Hare & Hare where called in to do the Civic Center master plan, they initially had every intention of keeping it. Eventually – for reasons I don’t yet know – this plan was ditched and the planning process took a different direction, ultimately settling on the layout we still see today, with the new art deco courthouse positioned east of Hudson. But recently I came across this sketch that shows how it would have looked had we kept the Old Courthouse…
January 24th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
What a great find … where did you run across the sketch? As best as I recall without looking, the old courthouse had been badly damaged, by fire, I think, and repairs/reconstruction costs were too great. I say again … I’m not certain about what I’m recalling.
BTW, I HATE mousepads and always disable them. They never worked for me.
January 26th, 2009 at 8:18 am
Doug – this is from a picture at one of the archives I recently visited while doing thesis research. I took some pictures to use as a reference during my research and just thought I would share some of the more interesting ones. Unfortunately, the quality of most of the images are too good, but I was able to clean it up enough in photoshop to post.
If you come across that info on the fire, please let me know. I would like to figure out why this scenario was abandoned.
January 26th, 2009 at 10:19 am
Here is what was probably in my mind somewhere when making the comment that I did … the comment was apparently a mix of fiction and a token of irrelevant fact (about the fire, as noted below). The old court house is the cover postcard for the 1st The Vanished Splendor book by Jim Edwards and Hal Ottaway (Abalache Book Shop Publishing Co. 1982). On the copyright page below the copyright is this description:
“COVER
Perhaps no other building symbolizes Oklahoma City more than the Oklahoma County Court House. Construction began on November 4, 1904, and was completed in 1906. It was designed by architects William A. Wells and his partner George Burlingof in a style designated as Massive Romanesque. No sooner had plans been announced and the plot of land acquired, that a controversy developed between the business interests on Main and Grand. Each street had influential spokesmen and each side wanted the Court House to face on its street. A compromise was finally reached and the building was placed so that it faced west on Dewey between Grand and Main. In reality this meant that few people actually used the front entrance, but opted for the preferred side and back entrances instead. Exterior walls were constructed of Indiana limestone with the interior floors of granite and the walls and stairways of Vermont marble. The city literally outgrew the building and quite soon after it was completed, governing agencies were forced to rent office space in buildings outside of the Court House. The County moved in 1938 to a new Court House that was built in the Civic Center complex. The old Court House building was used by the federal government to house a group of wartime agencies during World War II, but a fire in 1944 caused the building to be abandoned and boarded up. Demolition began late in 1950 and was completed the following year. The land was used for a time as a parking lot and later sold to the Holiday Inn Corporation for a downtown motel.”
That really doesn’t answer your query, though, since the referenced 1944 fire was well past the time that the design for the new court house was made. I tried to open the Oklahoman’s archives a few minutes ago to see what else I might find, but its search features weren’t working. I’ll look again later and see if I can come up with anything else.
January 26th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Great info Doug, thank you for posting!! It sounds like they just decided that the Civic Center construction presented the right opportunity to build more space and opted for the new courthouse instead. I will see if I can find anything to support this.
Sad the old one burned though…a beautiful building that I would love to have back!
January 26th, 2009 at 9:27 pm
Blair, I’m begging you to stop blogging about OKC’s great former masterplans of all types, because I find myself getting more and more disappointed in the current state of things. haha just kidding, keep up the great work. All of these are revelations to me.
I did some more research on my own after reading this and found out that Hare & Hare based in KC also designed the Philbrook grounds as one of its most famous projects and the one guy who developed a lot of KC’s great historic projects, including the famed Country Club Plaza in the 20s, also developed Heritage Hills and Nichols Hills in OKC. Some interesting KC-Oklahoma connections abound here, and somewhat explain why OKC feels like a Midwestern city in the south.
January 27th, 2009 at 11:49 am
Nick – you’re right, there are definitely some interesting connections. In fact, from 1889 to 1950, most – if not all – of the planning that took place in Oklahoma City involved professional landscape architects and planners from Kansas City or St. Louis. Hare & Hare completed the neighborhood plans for many of the NW neighborhoods developed by Classen and G.A Nichols. J.C. Nichols was the developer behind Country Club Plaza and was one of the best developers in the country – he actually founded the Urban Land Institute. But, I don’t think he ever did a project in OKC. Not sure if that is what you were saying – I may have misread it. G.A. Nichols – of no relation that I can find – developed a number of OKCs great neighborhoods including Crown Heights and Nichols Hills.
January 27th, 2009 at 11:07 pm
Oh, that would be my blunder. I just remembered Nichols developed OKC’s best historic neighborhoods, and Nichols developed the Plaza as well. I didn’t realize they were different Nichols’.
January 28th, 2009 at 7:41 pm
I took some time to look through the Oklahoman’s archives today, and found several items which relate to this project which included the search word, “Hare.” I limited my search to 1/1/1933 ~12/31/1937, but, I see in one of those articles that Hare & Hare were involved with Civic Center proposals as early as 1931. I’ve not even looked closely at what I’ve saved so far, but this much you might be interested in:
In the 9/1/1935 Oklahoman, a drawing appears showing voters what they would be voting on in the pending bond election: http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/civiccenter/oklahoman_9_1_1935_1.jpg … and http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/civiccenter/oklahoman_9_1_1935_2.jpg
It may be relevant that the old courthouse building is not shown in this aerial even though one can see the nearby Montgomery Wards building.
In the 9/6/1935 Oklahoman, a front page story carried what appears to be the same drawing you led this post with. I’ve saved part of the front page for illustrative purposes but have saved the associated article in readable form. Those images are here: http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/civiccenter/oklahoman_9_6_1935_1.jpg … http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/civiccenter/oklahoman_9_6_1935_2.jpg … http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/civiccenter/oklahoman_9_6_1935_1.jpg
Quite possibly, although you would know better than I, the old courthouse was only coincidentally included in the Hare & Hare drawing, perhaps for perspective, and not because it had anything to do with the actual project.
A few days later, 9/9/1935, another front page article describe a compromise, I think: http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/civiccenter/oklahoman_9_9_1935_1.jpg … http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/civiccenter/oklahoman_9_9_1935_2.jpg
I was able to confirm the 1944 fire: http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/civiccenter/oklahoman_11_27_1944_1.jpg … http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/civiccenter/oklahoman_11_27_1944_2.jpg
There’s lots more, but I’ve not got the time right now to do the assembly. I’ve got to go see the Thunder whack the Grizzlies!
January 29th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
OK, I’m done researching the Oklahoman’s archives. I’ve stuck all the articles I thought worth keeping in my photobucket account at this location: http://s8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/civiccenter/
Probably you understood what I’m about to say all along and it just took me time to “get it,” but I now see that the prominent building in the Hare & Hare sketch you posted above WASN’T the projected court house at all but was instead the projected city hall building. I said above that a 9/6/1935 story “carried what appears to be the same drawing you led this post with,” but I now see that I was mistaken … THAT article’s drawing added wings to the initially proposed city hall building which were not in the original … BUT … the drawing you posted DID appear in a May 1931 Oklahoman article. I’ve pieced together both articles and the sketch you posted for purposes of comparison … http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a49/DougLoudenback/civiccenter/oklahoman_5_19319_1935_combo.jpg
Although the 1931 Hare plan contemplated a new county courthouse AT THE LOCATION of the old courthouse, the original Hare drawing did not show what it might be like but showed the old one instead, presumably because his task was to make recommendations/concepts for the CIVIC CENTER and which did not originally envision a new county courthouse within that space. So, even though the old court house is shown in the 1931 drawing, it was not apparently contemplated that the old court house would be retained, or, at least, not necessarily so since it was contemplated that a new court house would be built in the same space. By the time the 5/1935 drawing was done, the proposed prominent building would have been a combo courthouse and city building, hence the 5 story wings … the tower was by then contemplated as the court house, if I’ve got it right. Anyway, all of the photobucket articles say much more. This has been a fun piece of history to explore.
And, by the way, it was a great game last night! Go Thunder!
January 29th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Doug – you are incredible for pulling all of this together. Thank you so much. I am thinking I may have to turn your comments into their own post! Or, if you want, you can make it a post and I will just link to it – it is afterall your work!
By the way, I have some more images on file that I believe confirm some of the ideas above. Busy with this ULI competition right now, but I will look through them soon and see if I can find out anything.
Great job! Thank you!
January 29th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
You’re more than welcome, Blair. It was fun looking up the stuff. Feel free to make any post with this information that you’d care to, plus whatever else you have … and I do think I’ll go ahead with an article of my own, crediting you, of course, with the initial find and inspiration! Multiple articles give diversity and different perspectives, and that’s a good thing. You come up with some terrific finds but for which I’d otherwise never have any clue. Collaboration by history nerds … you, Steve, others, is a powerful thing in digging up the old stuff. It pleases me to make a contribution in that process.
January 30th, 2009 at 8:48 am
My article is here: http://dougdawg.blogspot.com/2009/01/civic-center.html
As with most of my stuff, it will likely be edited, but it is substantially complete.
January 30th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
[...] was inspired by a wonderful sketch found by Blair Humphreys and posted in his excellent blog here: imagiNATIVEamerica OK Historic Courthouse?s Last Chance. Blair had located this excellent sketch of the Civic Center plan submitted by Hare & Hare in [...]
August 18th, 2010 at 3:20 pm
Do you happen to know if there were cannon’s mounted to the entrance of the court house. I have two pictures from 1942 of family and I think they might have been visiting the courthouse.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=341554&id=100000574836339
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=341541&id=100000574836339