Courthouse - Monroe County History Center

The Making of Monroe County’s First Permanent Courthouse

May 19, 2020Monroe Historypeople, placesCourthouse, Ketcham

Blog post by Randi Richardson Charles Blanchard in his History of Morgan, Monroe and Brown Counties published in 1884, noted that John Ketcham was given the contract to build Bloomington’s first permanent courthouse in 1820, but the courthouse was not complete until 1826. He supposed the reason for the delay was that Ketcham was paid

Bloomington Hitchrack Survives a Century of Controversy

Jul 22, 2019Monroe Historyevents, wehiaCourthouse, Hitchrack

Blog post by Randi Richardson There’s no doubt about it. The hitchrack surrounding the court house square was controversial. Oh, not at first, when Bloomington was yet a village, the streets were dirt and the merchants few. Folks came to town on a horse or in a buggy, occasionally a team of oxen, tied up

Smells of Local History

Sep 18, 2017Monroe History1 CommentwehiaCourthouse, Federation of Women's Clubs, Outhouse

The Monroe County courthouse has nice restrooms on the north end of the first floor. This was not true for the earlier courthouse buildings. The first log cabin (1818-1826), the second wooden building (1826-1856), and the third, with its brick wings extending that (1856-1906), lacked these facilities in the fourth, and present, courthouse. Instead, they