Defiance Ohio's first courthouse lasted less than 30 years before its replacement by a newer and larger building in the early 1870s.
Nearly a decade ago, the 1871 courthouse escaped a similar fate as county voters nixed a proposal to demolish and raze it in the face of ever-increasing population growth and demand for county services.
The original 1845 courthouse, designed by John Bostata, quickly became too small as this area of Ohio experienced nearly exponential population growth in the face of canal traffic and, later, railroad traffic through the area.
The City of Defiance became the county seat of Defiance County because of its central location in the county after adjustments to the county lines of Defiance and Williams Counties caused by the area's growth.
Defiance's original courthouse was a Federal-Style building. Its simple facade had two stories and large rectangular windows.
The county turned to architect J.C. Johnson to design a replacement building to sit at the same site when county officials decided to replace the courthouse.
Johnson's design was an Italianate/Second Empire style structure and included plans for a mansard roof pretty typical to the 1870s. The county scrapped mansard roof portion of the design because of safety concerns before construction of the building.
The current courthouse is a three-story building. Some of the original decorative stone elements still line the facade, but much of the ornamentation and the domed cupola topped by a spire disappeared over the years, most notably during a late 1950s remodel.
A number of the building's 1870s features still remain in place, including the small arched portico framed by Doric columns supporting a pediment.
Preservation purists may see the building's remodel as somewhat of mis-matched mish-mash of styles with the first two floors more closely matching the original design while the third floor has a much plainer design and a short square tower with a modern clock face replacing the 1870s two-story domed tower and clock that once rose 125 from the ground.
Severe space shortage in the county courthouse led the Defiance County commissioners to put a proposal before voters in 2006 to raze the building and build a much larger building in its place.
Voters convincingly turned down the proposal, and its $13 million price tag.
Some people felt the building no longer had any real historical value because of its multiple changes over the year that included tearing out a lot of woodwork in the building's interior, removing a lot of marble and other facade elements and the removal of the original upper floor and dome during the 1950s remodel.
Preservation-minded citizens argued that the building was still worth saving, and that renovating the building and moving some county functions to other buildings within the city would result in a much smaller tax request as well.
Members of the Historic Homes group that worked to save the building in 2006 still say they'd like to raise enough money to restore the facade in the future to look more as it did in the early 1870s They estimated the price tag for doing that at closer to $1 million.
Space and concern with meeting Americans with Disabilities Act regulations (like installing an elevator in the building) remain a concern, and it should be interesting to see how the country resolves those problems in years to come.
The courthouse sits at one end of downtown Defiance on Clinton St., and a war memorial designed by Mark Homier with an eternal flame sits in front of the building.
Check out this Web site for a few postcard images of the Defiance County Courthouse over the years.
Want to learn more about historic courthouses in Ohio? Check out County Courthouses of Ohio by Susan W. Thrane.
© Dominique King 2015 All rights reserved
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