page_title: Washington County Courthouse (Arkansas)
section_title: Early use
hierarchical_section_title: Washington County Courthouse (Arkansas) / History / Early use
caption_attribution_description: English: Washington County courthouse in Fayetteville, Arkansas, United States
context_page_description: The Washington County Courthouse is the name of a current courthouse and that of a historic one in Fayetteville, Arkansas, the county seat of Washington County. The historic building, built in 1905, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. The historic courthouse is the fifth building to serve Washington County, with the prior buildings located near the Old Post Office on the Historic Square. The building is one of the prominent historic buildings that compose the Fayetteville skyline, in addition to Old Main.
  A new building was acquired in 1989 to better serve Washington County's county administration needs. The present-day courthouse is located at the intersection of College Avenue and Dickson Street, just north of historic building. Most county offices are located in the new building, with the historic courthouse serving as a repository for county records.
context_section_description: The courthouse had many construction problems in its early years, including the closing of the hydraulic elevator, rotting of basement floorboards, birds in the bell tower, and eventually too many occupants. After relations and space grew tighter, the County Judge ordered the sheriff to evict all City of Fayetteville workers from their offices in 1927. The city appealed to the Circuit Judge, who sided with the County. The Fayetteville-occupied offices were emptied by 1928, but structural problems continued to plague the building. After repairing the roof three times in the 1920s, the courthouse's structural problems began to fall out of official record. The 1934 Quorum Court meetings took place in the Arkansas National Guard Armory immediately to the south between the courthouse and the County Jail, possibly due to courthouse structural problems kept quiet by the Great Depression. 
  The Works Progress Administration praised the courthouse during a 1936 audit, mentioning the tidy offices and public access to records. The WPA also warned that record space was dwindling, as the vaults were almost full. This was partially due to heroic actions during the Civil War, when county records were stored in a cave near Black Oak while the second courthouse was burned. As a result, Washington County held more records than most counties in the area. A 1945 proposal to construct a new courthouse was voted down by citizens who pointed out that Washington County still owed money to George Donaghey from the 1904 construction, and felt the current building was not being maximized.
  County Judge Witt Carter ordered the front steps of the courthouse be moved in 1947 to enable the widening and straightening of College Avenue (U.S. Route 71B). The following year, a grand jury reproached the county for poorly maintaining the structure, including unsanitary bathrooms, fire traps, attic storage, and using the boiler room as storage. The roof was repaired again, and the courthouse again had complaints about too little space.
caption: The clock steeple was removed in 1965 and returned by helicopter in 1974. The clock face is now illuminated.
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