Have you seen the scaffolding surrounding the Historic Green County Courthouse? The crown jewel of Monroe’s Square looks a bit different these days, and it won’t be back to normal any time soon. Because there’s a lot to unpack with the story of this ongoing renovation, I won’t cover it all in today’s column.
First, we need to start with a bit of history on Green County’s most famous and photographed building.
The current Green County Courthouse was completed in 1891 at a cost of $52,390. Exterior materials included pressed red brick, limestone block, and pillars of granite. The main roof and turrets were tiled in slate, and the roof of the clock tower was sheathed in copper. The local newspaper wrote that the design was “an artistic arrangement of towers and projecting windows, with cut-in stone and plate glass embellishments.”
The building was constructed before cranes were available, and legend has it that the large limestone trim blocks were pulled into place by horses led up a long ramp which began near the present site of the TDS building. This account was according to former Courthouse maintenance supervisor Bob VonKaenel, who heard it from a local man whose father had been a mason on the project. It’s one of those heard it through the grapevine things, and unfortunately there are no known photos documenting the process.
Records do exist, however, to show that the bell in the tower was forged by the Meneely Bell Foundry of West Troy, New York. The tower was finished off in grand style with a timepiece for all to see. Four illuminated clock face dials were added at a cost of $270 in total. The clock was purchased from the E. Howard Clock Company in Boston, a company which started off building clocks for homes, then watches, and later expanding their operations to tower and street clocks. The city of Monroe chipped in half of the cost of the clock.
When the cornerstone was laid in August of 1891, the citizens of Green County were assured that “the expense put into stone and other non-combustible materials will make the courthouse a lasting monument, one that would be good a hundred years hence.”
Fast forward to 1955, when a strong wind storm damaged the clock tower steeple and sent pieces of metal crashing down. Lack of funds to repair it caused an unsightly change to the profile of the building: the steeple was removed and the clock tower was capped flat with cement. A photo shows Cheese Days promoter Archie Myers standing on that flat roof of the tower and blowing an alphorn to mark the start festival in 1974.
By 1985, the local Quester’s club had raised the funds to have the steeple restored. My friend Marian Kundert was one of the Questers who led the charge to make this happen. The original steeple was a bit taller and slimmer than the tower you see today. The cost of restoration was nearly equal to what the cost of the entire building had been back in 1891.
Various renovations to the Courthouse have taken place over the years. By the 1980’s, years of expansion and contraction had caused vertical joints on the aluminum sheet metal on the towers to pull apart. The main roof also needed replacing, and the county board debated the merits of slate vs. copper vs. fiberglass shingles. At the time, fiberglass shingles were relatively new, but they came with a 25-year guarantee. In 1985, the board chose fiberglass shingles for the main roof and copper sheeting for the towers.
In my next column, I’ll take you up the scaffolding, into the attic, and behind the scenes into a restoration project originally estimated at $1.8 million dollars and a nine-month time frame to complete.
— Noreen Rueckert is director for Green County Tourism and Green County Cheese Days, and helps out with Main Street Monroe’s Concerts on the Square. Her favorite cheese is rumored to be Feta. She has the best office in the county — overlooking Monroe’s Square from the tower of the Historic Green County Courthouse. She dabbles in photography and graphic design, adores cats and iced coffee, and secretly loves the Cheese Days Song.
