Chatham County Courthouse

Chatham County Courthouse
Chatham County Courthouse, April 2023
Chatham County Courthouse is located in North Carolina
Chatham County Courthouse
Chatham County Courthouse is located in the United States
Chatham County Courthouse
Map
Interactive map showing the location of Chatham County Courthouse
LocationNC 15-501 and Highway 64, Pittsboro, North Carolina
Coordinates35°43′13″N 79°10′38″W / 35.72028°N 79.17722°W / 35.72028; -79.17722
Built1881
Architectural styleLate Victorian
MPSNorth Carolina County Courthouses TR
NRHP reference No.79001691[1]
Added to NRHPMay 10, 1979
Chatham County Courthouse during its reconstruction in 2012

The Chatham County Courthouse is a historic courthouse located at Pittsboro, Chatham County, North Carolina. It sits at the center of town in the middle of a traffic circle. It was built in 1881 for $10,666 and is a two-story rectangular brick structure in the Late Victorian style. It features a two-story classical portico crowned with a distinctive three-stage cupola. A one-story addition was built in the 1930s by the Works Progress Administration. In 1959, extensive renovations were performed on the building.[2]

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.[1] It is located in the Pittsboro Historic District.

A fire on March 24, 2010, did great damage to the building which was in the midst of another renovation.[3][4] The restored building reopened April 20, 2013 with an exhibit covering Chatham County history on the first floor and a courtroom on the second.[5]

In 1907, the county gave a license to the United Daughters of the Confederacy to place a statue of a Confederate soldier outside the courthouse. In 2019, the Chatham County Board of Commissioners voted to rescind this license, and the statue was removed as part of the trend toward removal of Confederate monuments and memorials in the 2010s.[6][7]

References

  1. ^ a b "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
  2. ^ Mary Ann Lee and Joe Mobley (n.d.). "Courthouses in North Carolina: Chatham County Courthouse" (PDF). National Register of Historic Places - Nomination and Inventory. North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office. Retrieved 2014-08-01.
  3. ^ Anne Blythe (2010-03-24). "Historic Chatham County courthouse burns". Raleigh News & Observer. Retrieved 2010-03-28.
  4. ^ "Exterior walls of Chatham County courthouse may be salvageable". Chatham Journal Weekly. 2010-03-26. Retrieved 2010-03-28.
  5. ^ Goodtree, Hal (2013-04-21). "Historic Chatham County Courthouse Restored". Cary Citizen. Retrieved 2013-04-23.
  6. ^ Confederate monument at center of protests in Chatham County taken down
  7. ^ Taylor, Derrick Bryson (20 November 2019). "Confederate Statue in North Carolina Comes Down After 112 Years (Published 2019)". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2022-10-13.