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Arkansas » Delta » Lee County » Marianna and Vicinity » Lee County Courthouse

Lee County Courthouse

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1939, George Mahan Jr. and Everett Woods Architects; 1965, addition. 15 E. Chestnut St.
  • (Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, A Division of the Department of Arkansas Heritage)

Marianna was founded in the 1820s and named in honor of Mary Ann Harland, who donated the property for the town site. The 1873 act creating Lee County also designated the centrally located Marianna as the county seat. Marianna’s proximity to the L’Anguille River, which meets the St. Francis and flows into the Mississippi, made it prosperous before the first railroad arrived in 1879. Designed by a Memphis, Tennessee, firm and built by local contractors Jennings and Samuel, the yellow brick and limestone courthouse was set in front of the original 1889 courthouse building in the town square. The 1889 building was later torn down for a one-story addition completed in 1965, which houses the courtroom and county offices. Taller than it is wide, the handsome yet restrained classical detailing on the 1939 building’s exterior combines with the sheer, imposing aspect of the overall composition to make this PWA-funded building even more impressive. In the square facing the courthouse are veterans’ monuments honoring those who served in World War I and subsequent wars.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Cyrus A. Sutherland with Gregory Herman, Claudia Shannon, Jean Sizemore Jeannie M. Whayne and Contributors
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Data

What's Nearby

W. S. McClintock House
Community House–Lee County Museum (Elks Club)
St. Francis National Forest

Citation

Cyrus A. Sutherland with Gregory Herman, Claudia Shannon, Jean Sizemore Jeannie M. Whayne and Contributors, "Lee County Courthouse", [Marianna, Arkansas], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/AR-01-LE1.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of Arkansas

Buildings of Arkansas, Cyrus A. Sutherland and contributors. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2018, 245-245.

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