Saline County Courthouse (Illinois)

The Saline County Courthouse is a government building in Harrisburg, the county seat of Saline County, Illinois, United States. Built in 1967, it is the fifth courthouse to serve the county and the third in Harrisburg.

Southern front of the courthouse on Poplar Street
1861 courthouse (left)
Postcard of the 1904 courthouse

The first land purchase in present-day Saline County occurred late in 1814,[1]:152 at a time when the nearby Illinois Salines in today's Gallatin County were still providing the majority of the area's income. The area was then part of Gallatin County, within which it remained until 1847.[2] County officials began to meet in October 1847,[1]:160 and by the year's end, a county seat had been platted and named "Raleigh".[1]:183 Because Raleigh lies in far northern Saline County,[1]:204 in 1853 southern residents platted a new town, Harrisburg, on high ground near the Saline River.[1]:203 County voters narrowly supported moving the seat in an 1857 election, although a court battle delayed the move for two years,[1]:205 and the community did not incorporate until 1861.[1]:213

By the end of 1848, Saline County's first courthouse was complete; it was a simple frame building,[2] and it grew inadequate so rapidly that a brick replacement was erected and opened in early 1854. With the transfer of county seat status to Harrisburg, plans for a new courthouse were laid beginning in early 1859,[1]:186 and the third courthouse opened around New Year's, 1861. It was a Greek Revival structure with Doric columns and a portico on the facade.[1]:187 It was removed in 1904 in order to construct a larger courthouse, three stories high with an attached clock tower, and this building in turn was removed in 1967 to permit the completion of the current courthouse. Unlike the artistic previous courthouses, the current and fifth courthouse is a plain Modernist structure with windowless brick walls and a recessed main entrance atop a shallow flight of stairs.[2]

References
  1. History of Gallatin, Saline, Hamilton, Franklin, and Williamson counties, Illinois: from the earliest time to the present, together with sundry and interesting biographical sketches, notes, reminiscences, etc., etc. Chicago: Goodspeed, 1887.
  2. Weiser, Dennis. Illinois courthouses: an illustrated history. Virginia Beach: Donning, 2009, 131.

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