The
stately original Piute County Courthouse in Junction, Utah, is one of many
such early governmental architectural achievements adorning the US 89
roadside. However, the Piute County Courthouse is perhaps more
noteworthy than most other such edficies because of the "home
made" aspects of its 1902-03 construction.
First,
consider than a man named Christensen quarried all of the foundation
rock from a hill north of nearby Kingston. This was no small feat
since the foundation was nine feet wide and five feet deep!
Meanwhile,
three men and two boys made every single one of the 200,000 bricks
that went into the building. They set up a brickmaking operation near
the Courthouse construction site. The structure's walls were three
bricks thick, the inside being unfired adobe while the interior and
outside walls were made with the locally fired, hand made bricks. It
took ten days to fully fire and harden a single batch of bricks. The
bricks were produced in a long "home made" kiln fired by
hand using locally cut wood. Cost of the finished 1903 building was
slightly more than $8,000. Ninety four years later, today's modern
Piute County Courthouse was finished at a cost of $2.1-million.
County officials sold the old courthouse to help pay for the new one.
The old Courthouse lives on as Piute County's primary visual
historical icon while now serving as a venue for private parties,
reunions and so forth.
The biggest celebration that ever took place on the Courthouse grounds was the joyous party held to flip the switch and turn on electricity in June 1930.
The biggest celebration that ever took place on the Courthouse grounds was the joyous party held to flip the switch and turn on electricity in June 1930.
