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Crawford County Courthouse

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1952–1954, Edwin S. Hanna and D. Fuller Stewart. Diamond Park Sq. at E. Cherry St.
  • (Photograph by Matthew Aungst)

This competent handling of Georgian Revival, favored in Pennsylvania courthouse design in the 1940s and 1950s, is similar to the McKean County Courthouse ( MK1). Here, the Meadville architects brought the symmetrical red-orange brick wings forward to create a recessed entrance set off by a pedimented portico with a clock tower and cupola above. A simple stone cornice and window trim around the double-sash six-over-six windows are all as expected. The interior is closer to a school than a courthouse: there are no ceremonial spaces or murals, just plaster and tile finishes in the well-lit offices. There have been three courthouses in Crawford County. The earliest courthouse of 1824–1828 with Doric columns was designed by eminent Greek Revival architect William Strickland and was demolished in the 1860s; it is commemorated on the present courthouse in bas-relief. A Second Empire–styled courthouse of 1867 yielded some of the walls, the foundations, and part of the floors used in the construction of the present courthouse.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Lu Donnelly et al.
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Data

What's Nearby

First Presbyterian Church
Tarr Mansion
Meadville Unitarian-Universalist Church
Christ Episcopal Church
Johnson-Shaw Stereoscopic Museum (Huidekoper Land Company)

Citation

Lu Donnelly et al., "Crawford County Courthouse", [Meadville, Pennsylvania], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/PA-01-CR1.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of PA vol 1

Buildings of Pennsylvania: Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania, Lu Donnelly, H. David Brumble IV, and Franklin Toker. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2010, 509-509.

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