I want more history and fun things in the front portion of a remodeled Platte County Courthouse, a post Civil War structure that everyone agrees is historic. What people don’t agree on is what should be done to fix a crowded courtroom situation with another division yet to be added.
Circuit court judges have asked for a new jail and justice center, which would likely be away from the courthouse square. Platte County commissioners want to renovate the existing courthouse structures, and they are moving the Sheriff’s Department to near KCI. One citizens’ petition is circulating to keep the court rooms in Platte City as part of the current courthouse.
Bill Graham
My complaint is that ever since modern security screening was invoked to prevent shootings and bombings in courtrooms and courthouses, the average person could not easily enjoy the fine architecture of the original building. There’s a graciousness to the tall windows, broad doors, and the wide east and west staircases that simply don’t occur in modern buildings. Plus, in simpler times of the 1980s and 1990s (and all decades prior), the ground floor seemed more friendly with some of the other basic office holders like the county clerk present.
I visited the Courthouse on Monday. The sheriff’s deputy manning the security checkpoint and metal scanner was pleasant enough. A few people asked if they could help me find my way as I wandered the halls. I bumped into a few old friends and acquaintances from earlier days.
Still, it just doesn’t seem like a welcoming place easily entered. If you want photos of the historic portion of the courthouse, you are out of luck. No cameras or cell phones allowed due to the presence of various courtrooms on all floors. As far as crowding, the whole place seems far more cramped than I remembered, on every floor and in all rooms that were visible.
What to do about the courthouse is a recurring issue in Platte County.
During the Civil War, Union troops burned the original 1840s courthouse that sat a little further downhill on Main Street from the current structure. After the Civil War ended in the spring of 1865, by September the first appropriation for a new courthouse was made, according to historian W.M. Paxton’s Annals of Platte County. Paxton had watched the original burn during the war. He was eventually chosen as the agent to sell the old foundation stone, and he was in the thick of things as a new one was planned and built.
The cornerstone for a new courthouse was laid on June 20, 1866. Remember that this was before people passed time with television, internet, and so forth. So, “The crowd was immense,” Paxton wrote. Masons led the ceremony, he said. By September of 1866, he reported, the lawn was graded and walled in. Even today there is some limestone sticking up on the west edge of the lawn, which may be part of those old walls. In December, Paxton wrote simply, “Courthouse is complete.” Contractor J.A. McGonagle would later be paid $93,852.65 for building it and a nearby jail building.
Not everyone could agree on how to dedicate the new courthouse, including the teetotaler Paxton. He wrote that on Feb. 14, 1867, “St. Valentine’s Day profaned by a dance and carousal, at the new courthouse, called a dedication.”
Mr. Paxton would be gratified that alcohol is unlikely to be served and dancing not a part of the festivities when some type of new courthouse configuration is complete and dedicated (but wouldn’t that be fun!). In the 156 years since, the courthouse has grown northward like a zucchini squash during a rainy summer.
The courthouse was added onto in the 1970s and they did a good job matching the original architecture. Many Missouri counties simply started over, and as folk musician John Hartford sang in a lyric, “It looks like an electric shaver where the courthouse used to be.” Not so here, they did a pretty good job. They also built a basement jail and more courtrooms. The old separate jail was torn down. The one where people like Blanche Barrow of the Bonnie and Clyde gang fame were kept, her after the gang’s shoot out with the law south of Platte City. The jail was rebuilt and expanded in the decades since. A sheriff’s department was added on, and that office is connected to an administration building with two stories and a basement for the county commission and other elected officials.
Now the county has grown, with even bigger population and business growth coming. Remember that the courthouse complex is not just about courtrooms. There are prosecutors, probation officials, court clerks that keep records, and other services connected to the courts. But also in the complex are the offices for county commissioners (they used to be called judges, too), recorder of deeds, assessor, county clerk, collector, planning and zoning, and Platte County Parks and Recreation. On the square, parking seems to be at a premium on many weekdays.
I’m not sure if moving the justice related offices would help or hurt downtown Platte City.
What I would like to see is the older portions of the courthouse reopened for general public use. Move the justice system out of town, or to the edge of town, or move the entrance to justice offices to another part of the complex.
Move some of the record keeping and administrative offices back into the old parts of the courthouse. Move the once heralded Platte County parks department out of the basement and planning and zoning offices into ground floor and front offices so the department can be expanded as the county grows. Add history and parks displays. Let people go up and down both of the wide stairways. Start a partnership with the Platte County Historical Society and similar organizations in Parkville, Weston, Dearborn, Platte City, and Edgerton. Let visitors see historical interpretation that also point visitors toward museums and points of interest in those towns.
Just where in Platte City was that famous photo of Jesse James with the pistol to his breast taken? Where precisely were the falls of the Platte River?
Already in the courthouse lobby, beyond the screening, Shirley Kimsey has placed a rotating wooden bookcase from the old courthouse that she tracked down in Kentucky. Someone else added some old county legal books to the case. In another corner is the old shoeshine stand. There is a giant 1899 county map. Are those coins in the glass case in the lobby floor from where Paxton said the Mason’s led the cornerstone laying ceremony in 1866, and perhaps some were added in the 1970s? There are stories to be told and shared.
Make the Courthouse a positive attraction for the county and Platte City. Let the original courthouse and the 1970s addition breath again. Let people freely enter again.
Bill Graham is a long-time commentator on Platte County and its history. He lives in the Platte City area and can be reached at editor@plattecountycitizen.com.