You are here

Michigan » The Upper Peninsula » The Sault and Mackinac Region » Mackinac County » Mackinac County Courthouse

Mackinac County Courthouse

-A A +A
1936–1937, G. Harold Thompson. 100 Marley St.
  • (Photograph by Balthazar Korab)

The handsome reinforced-concrete and masonry Moderne Mackinac County Courthouse heralded a new age in governmental buildings. Its plain geometric design reflects a movement in the 1930s to emphasize the future rather than the past and to break with the historicist tradition of the earlier Beaux-Arts or period styles. It was built ostensibly to expand and reface an earlier brick structure erected on the site in 1882. In 1936 the Works Progress Administration (WPA) awarded Mackinac County a grant to repair the existing county courthouse. The work as specified on the federal application called for removing the roof, erecting an additional story, reroofing the building, and re-covering the exterior with limestone and pressed brick. According to local tradition and historians, the chairman of the board of supervisors and the building committee wanted a new structure, not repairs, and acted accordingly. Exhibiting the independent and resourceful spirit of the Upper Peninsula's residents, they tore down three sides of the existing courthouse and wired Prentiss M. Brown (1889–1973), then their U.S. senator, for funds under this federal government–sponsored program to repair the building. They then tore down the remaining wall, received additional funds, and completed the all-new structure. In 1939, architect Thompson designed the PWA Moderne Charlevoix City Hall ( CX1), though his specialty was residential work around the inland lakes of northern Lower Michigan.

The Mackinac courthouse emphasizes the streamlined second phase of Art Deco. It is a tripartite, three-story, flat-roofed central block on a raised foundation with slightly lower projections to the east and west. Between full-height pilasters the walls are laid in a zigzag pattern with coursed smooth-cut Briar Hill sandstone and infilled with brick. An ornamental metal grille over the main entrance depicts scenes recalling frontier Mackinac—a hunter, a trapper with dog sled, an Indian, and the forest. The third-floor courtroom is a period classic.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Kathryn Bishop Eckert
×

Data

What's Nearby

St. Ignace Municipal Building
Warren and Florence Highstone House
Marquette Mission Park and Museum of Objibwa Culture (St. Ignace Mission)
Castle Rock and Indian Village
Mackinac Straits Bridge

Citation

Kathryn Bishop Eckert, "Mackinac County Courthouse", [St. Ignace, Michigan], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/MI-01-MK1.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of Michigan

Buildings of Michigan, Kathryn Bishop Eckert. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012, 559-560.

If SAH Archipedia has been useful to you, please consider supporting it.

SAH Archipedia tells the story of the United States through its buildings, landscapes, and cities. This freely available resource empowers the public with authoritative knowledge that deepens their understanding and appreciation of the built environment. But the Society of Architectural Historians, which created SAH Archipedia with University of Virginia Press, needs your support to maintain the high-caliber research, writing, photography, cartography, editing, design, and programming that make SAH Archipedia a trusted online resource available to all who value the history of place, heritage tourism, and learning.

,