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La Plata County Courthouse

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1959, C. Francis Pillsbury. 1989, Caudill Gustafson Ross and Associates. 1060 E. 2nd Ave. (between 10th and 11th sts.)

Durangoans razed their old (1892) Italianate stone courthouse after Francis Pillsbury, a Denver architect, designed a two-story, orange brick, rectilinear wing that was left free-standing. Thirty years later a team of Aspen architects added another wing in the same boxy form as Pillsbury's work with a contemporary version of a dentiled cornice in metal, recessed windows, and a second story of slightly cantilevered cubes. They tied the wings together and gave the fullblock complex a distinctive entry through a central, three-story Neo-Victorian bell tower crowned with a wrought iron crest. The old courthouse bell and Seth Thomas clock were repaired by Durango automobile mechanic Tony Ferdinando and installed in the tower.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Thomas J. Noel
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Data

What's Nearby

Office Building (Post Office)
Carnegie Library
3rd Avenue Residential District
First Presbyterian Church
Wigglesworth House

Citation

Thomas J. Noel, "La Plata County Courthouse", [Durango, Colorado], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/CO-01-LP09.

Print Source

Buildings of Colorado, Thomas J. Noel. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997, 557-557.

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