Cambria County Courthouse

Cambria County Courthouse is a historic courthouse located at Ebensburg, Cambria County, Pennsylvania. It was built in 1880-1881, and is a 3 1/2-story, brick building in the Second Empire style. It features a mansard roof.

Cambria County Courthouse
Cambria County Courthouse, July 2009
LocationCenter St., Ebensburg, Pennsylvania
Coordinates40°29′1″N 78°43′29″W
Area1.6 acres (0.65 ha)
Built1880-1881, 1923
ArchitectShank, Henry; Beebe, M.E.
Architectural styleSecond Empire
NRHP reference No.80003449[1]
Added to NRHPJune 30, 1980

It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.[1]

Building

Two earlier courthouses served the county. The first was built in 1808 and the second in 1828-1830. The current courthouse was built on the same site as the second.[2]

M.E. Beebe of Buffalo, New York designed the courthouse and Henry Shenk constructed it at a cost of $109,962. The building is a parallelogram with a 120 ft. of frontage on Center St. with a depth of 80 ft. The height to the eaves of the roof is 48 ft. Eighty thousand pressed bricks made by H & G Evans of Philadelphia were used to construct the outer walls, and 20,000 bricks were made onsite for the inner walls.[2]

The mansard slate roof has porthole dormers and elaborate chimneys and a decorative bracketed cornice. The central pavilion has flanking pilasters supporting a classic portico.[2]

A 1923 renovation added an elevator, three new wings, each with a courtroom, and a rotunda with an elaborate glass dome joining the wings. Courtroom 1 was added at this time. It is one of the largest courtrooms in the United States, with 500 seats. A second renovation was completed in 1995. Twenty-six portraits of county judges grace the building, many of which were painted in the 1920s and 1930s by Mr. and Mrs. Vale. Two 1930 murals, Knowledge and Justice were restored in 1994.[2][3]

See also

References
  1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
  2. "Cambria County Courthouse, p.2" (PDF). Cambria County. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-09-23. Retrieved December 3, 2013.
  3. "Cambria County Courthouse, p.1" (PDF). Cambria County. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-09-23. Retrieved December 3, 2013.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.