Rutherford County Courthouse | |
Location | Public Square, Murfreesboro, Tennessee |
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Coordinates | 35°50′46″N86°23′31″W / 35.84611°N 86.39194°W |
Area | 6 acres (2.4 ha) |
Built | 1813 original, 1859 current building |
Architectural style | Classical Revival, Italianate |
NRHP reference No. | 73001826 [1] |
Added to NRHP | July 16, 1973 |
The Rutherford County Courthouse in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, is a Classical Revival building from 1859. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. [1] It is one of six remaining antebellum county courthouses in Tennessee [2]
In 1813 a courthouse, jail and other buildings were built on the site occupied by the current building. The courthouse served as the seat of the state legislature until 1822 when the structure burned down. [3] After the courthouse burnt down in 1822, the state legislature meetings were held at the local Presbyterian Church until the capitol was moved to Nashville in 1826. The population of Murfreesboro greatly declined following this, and the county would use the church as their courthouse until 1859. [4]
A new, larger, courthouse was built in 1859 at a cost of $50,000. The original cupola was designed to reflect the Tennessee State Capitol building in Nashville. [5] In 1860 a new bell and clock tower was constructed. During the Civil War the Courthouse was occupied by both Confederate and Union troops. Confederate troops, under the command of Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, occupied the area from July 1862 until the end of the Battle of Stones River in early 1863. The Courthouse then served as a headquarters for the Union army until the end of the war. [6]
The Courthouse narrowly escaped destruction when a tornado hit Murfreesboro in 1913 which caused minor damage to the clock tower. [7]
In the spring of 1923, a man known as the "Human Fly" announced that he would climb to the top of the Courthouse for a small fee. His ascent was successful but as he began to climb down he lost his footing and fell to his death. During WWII, to announce the first statewide blackout the Courthouse bell was rung at 9:00 PM on June 9, 1942 and the Courthouse became the site of an air raid alarm. The square surrounding the Courthouse was used for military training exercises. [8]
During the early 1960s wings were added on either side of the original 1859 building to accommodate the need for additional space. [9] Although, there have been no major constructions on the site since then the interior was renovated in 1998 to its original 19th-century appearance. [5]
There is a popular local legend which states there are a series of tunnels, possibly for escape or transferring funds to nearby banks, running from the Courthouse to various locations. No such tunnels have been discovered, although small (and limited) subterranean structures do exist such as drainage pipes. [10]
The historic courthouse no longer hosts the county's various courts, which are now located in the Rutherford County Judicial Building that opened on April 25, 2018, on West Lytle Street. [11]
In 1901, the Sons of Confederate Veterans along with the Ladies Memorial Association erected a monument to the Confederacy on the Courthouse lawn. [12] [13] On the west side of the Courthouse, in 1912, a tablet was erected by the Col. Hardy Murfree Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution to commemorate Murfreesboro's status as former state capitol. Another monument was erected, this time on the southwest lawn, in 1949 to further memorialize the city's status as former state capitol. [5]
Additional monuments around the Courthouse include, a monument to Revolutionary War Gen. Griffith Rutherford, a monument dedicated to Rutherford County law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty since 1946, two plaques in memory to the memory of Forrest's Raid on Murfreesboro (July 13, 1862), a memorial to Veterans of Foreign Wars, a plaque in honor of those who served the Confederacy from Rutherford County, and a monument erected in 2011 by the Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp #33 dedicated to those from Rutherford County who served in the Army of Tennessee. [5]
Nathan Bedford Forrest was a Confederate Army general during the American Civil War and was later the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan from 1867 to 1869.
The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) is an American neo-Confederate hereditary association for female descendants of Confederate Civil War soldiers engaging in the commemoration of these ancestors, the funding of monuments to them, and the promotion of the pseudohistorical Lost Cause ideology and corresponding white supremacy.
Sam Davis was a Confederate soldier executed by Union forces in Pulaski, Tennessee, during the American Civil War. He is popularly known as the Boy Hero of the Confederacy, although he was 21 when he died. He became a celebrated instance of Confederate memorialization in the late 1890s and early 1900s, eulogized by Middle Tennesseeans for his valor and sacrifice. Davis' story was popularized by editor J. B. Killebrew and later by Sumner Archibald Cunningham. Due in part to the story's themes of piety and masculinity, Cunningham's portrayal of Davis fit into mythology of the "Lost Cause" in the postwar South.
The Tennessee State Capitol, located in Nashville, Tennessee, is the seat of government for the U.S. state of Tennessee. It serves as the home of both houses of the Tennessee General Assembly–the Tennessee House of Representatives and the Tennessee Senate–and also contains the governor's office. Designed by architect William Strickland (1788–1854) of Philadelphia and Nashville, it was built between 1845 and 1859 and is one of Nashville's most prominent examples of Greek Revival architecture. The building, one of 12 state capitols that does not have a dome, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1970 and named a National Historic Landmark in 1971. The tomb of James K. Polk, the 11th president of the United States, is on the capitol grounds.
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The Confederate Monument, in Cadiz, Kentucky, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997. A marble memorial to the Confederate veterans of Trigg County it was erected in 1913 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy.
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Eliphalet Frazer Andrews, an American painter known primarily as a portraitist, established an art instruction curriculum at the behest of William Wilson Corcoran at his Corcoran School of Art, and served as its director, 1877–1902. He received many commissions to create both original portraits and copies of images of deceased famous Americans, which are displayed by federal, state, and local institutions. His art is housed at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Ohio State Capitol, and numerous paintings at The White House and the United States Capitol.
The Civil War Trust's Civil War Discovery Trail is a heritage tourism program that links more than 600 U.S. Civil War sites in more than 30 states. The program is one of the White House Millennium Council's sixteen flagship National Millennium Trails. Sites on the trail include battlefields, museums, historic sites, forts and cemeteries.
More than 160 monuments and memorials to the Confederate States of America and associated figures have been removed from public spaces in the United States, all but five since 2015. Some have been removed by state and local governments; others have been torn down by protestors.
The Tennessee Heritage Protection Act (THPA) was enacted in 2013, amended in 2016, 2018, and 2023. It prohibits the removal, relocation, or renaming of a memorial that is, or is located on, public property without permission. Changes enacted in 2023 require a two-thirds vote of approval from the nine member Tennessee Monuments and Memorials Commission. Until June, 2023 cases were heard by the board of the Tennessee Historical Commission, 24 of whose members are appointed by the Governor and the remainder ex-officio. The purpose of the Act is to prevent the removal of Confederate memorials from public places in Tennessee. As put by the New York Times, the Act shows "an express intent to prevent municipalities in Tennessee from taking down Confederate memorials."
The Monument to Confederate war soldiers was an outdoor Confederate memorial located outside of the Tarrant County Courthouse in Fort Worth, Texas. The memorial was funded by the United Daughters of the Confederacy in 1953.