Rock Island County Courthouse, R.I.P. (1895 — 2023)

As I write, the Rock Island County Courthouse, built in 1895, is being demolished. The building “died” at the age of 128 years. The cause of death was obsolescence, aggravated by the neglect of the county’s voters.

When I first came to Rock Island, in September of 1966, the courthouse was already a victim of voter neglect. A post card, in the collection of the Rock Island Preservation Society shows the courthouse with at least six beautiful domes and a copper roof. By the time I first set foot in Rock Island County, that copper roof and all six domes were long-gone. The spectacular main dome had been replaced by an ugly box covering the air conditioning unit.

But it is really not fair to blithely blame the voters. By the building’s 35th birthday, America was in the throes of the Great Depression. Most voters could barely support their own families; they didn’t have an extra dime for courthouse repairs and maintenance. And that Great Depression dragged on for a decade — and for many folks, until the end of World War II in 1945. Even after the war had ended, there were still people living on the Rock Island City Dump, feeding their families on the garbage discarded by others.

I can still remember my first full day in Rock Island County. Before my job interview with the then State’s Attorney Richard Stengel, I walked over to the federal courthouse to see if I might also interview with the U.S. Attorney. What I remember clearly from that morning, was how forbidding the Federal Courthouse seemed with all its office doors shut, and how friendly the Rock Island County Courthouse seemed with all its doors wide open.

After that interview and job offer, Dick Stengel took me on a tour of the courthouse. Over the years, I explored it myself when I had free time. When I explored the basement, it was like going down into a coal mine. By that time, the tunnel under 15th Street, from the old jail to the courthouse, originally constructed to allow the sheriff to safely convey prisoners to court, had been converted into a tunnel to accommodate the pipes that provided heat to the courthouse.

On the first floor was a large unattractive men’s room, a small unattractive sheriff’s office, and a very plain probate court and probate chambers. They had all the charm of an old bowling alley. There was also an ancient, tiny elevator.

The recorder of deeds office sat at the south end of the 2nd floor. An old, utterly unattractive county court occupied the north end. In the middle front, was the small, plain, cluttered clerk’s office.

The third floor had already been “remodeled.” The old two-story circuit courtroom, had been “remodeled” out of existence. It was replaced by a new courtroom with a jury box, a hearing room and three judges’ chambers in back. Above, a law library was created. None of the changes were in keeping with the design of the courthouse as originally constructed, or worthy, in the least, of historical preservation.

By the time I retired in 2000, the only portion of the building that bore any similarity to the original design, was the exterior brick work. In the interior, even the great double staircase had been halved — to allow for installation of a modern elevator. I can still recall our female court reporters complaining about the women’s facilities. Even the circuit clerk’s office, which when I arrived in 1966 had been so open and friendly, had been chopped up into a warren of cubicles.

Of course, like any building, the courthouse could have been restored to its original condition.

If that would have been a wise expenditure of money, a private investor would have bought the building and undertaken that restoration. The fact that the cost of restoration made the project unfeasible for a private investor, rather clearly demonstrates that it would have been a waste of taxpayer dollars.

I’m a guy that loves old buildings. While on the bench, while assigned to Mercer, Henry and Whiteside counties, I explored all the old courthouses. In Whiteside County, I walked across the boards laying atop the rafter above the old circuit courtroom, and upstairs explored the rooms where the judge and jurors slept over when the cases continued into the next day.

Of the four courthouses, I explored, during my years on the bench, only one — The Henry County Courthouse — was worth saving. To this day, it remains an architectural masterpiece and thing of beauty. The people of Henry County deserve high praise for their preservation of it.

First Published in the Moline Dispatch and Rock Island Argus on April 16, 2023. 

Copyright 2023, John Donald O'Shea