The Midland County Courthouse is a public building located at 301 West Main Street in Midland, Michigan. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986. It is the only courthouse in the state that has a Tudor Revival style. It will have been in use for 100 years by 2026.
History
Henry Ashmun traveled by horse to the state capital in Lansing to ask the state legislature for permission to build a courthouse in Midland City, which had 15 homes and was the county seat of Midland County. The legislature allowed the board of supervisors and the prosecuting attorney to choose the location for the new courthouse. However, no one in the legislature checked who the prosecutor was or who was on the board. If they had, they would have learned that Henry Ashmun held both positions. The land chosen for the courthouse may have been donated by Dr. Fitzhugh or owned by Ashmun. The site was in the center of the area, and stakes were placed in the ground on October 13, 1856, to mark the location. Timothy Jerome and Dan Davis traveled from Saginaw by boat to join a group of Midlanders. They shared a bottle of champagne brought by Jerome, who designed the courthouse. Construction began the next year and was finished in 1858. The courthouse was a wooden building with a Greco-Roman style and cost $6,000.
Before 1920, people discussed building a new courthouse because the existing one was considered outdated. When Dr. Herbert Dow, who worked at Dow Chemical Company, supported the idea, the decision was made. Architect Bloodgood Tuttle, who had designed a home for his son, Willard, was chosen to create the new design. Legal problems delayed funding, but by 1924, only $180,000 of the needed $220,000 had been collected. Dr. Dow proposed to cover any costs beyond $180,000 if he could use materials from Dow Chemical in the building.
Saginaw’s Spence Brothers won the construction contract at the end of 1924, and work began next to the old courthouse. Paul Honore, a mural artist from Detroit, was hired to create artwork on the outside. Some parts of the courthouse used magnesite stucco, a material developed by Dow Chemical. A Dow employee helped the artist make this material by replacing sand with ground glass for sparkle and color. Honore used a palette knife to create 3-D figures showing Midland County’s history. The old courthouse from 1858 was torn down in 1929 by Hiram Crane, who used the wood to build three homes.
Thirty years later, the courthouse needed more space. Alden B. Dow, the son of Herbert Dow, designed an addition shaped like a cross to include the sheriff’s living quarters, jail cells for 52 prisoners, and office space. A building committee of seven people was formed, and the Collinson Construction Company was chosen to expand the courthouse. Fieldstone from local farms was used to match the look of the 1926 building. The addition was completed and dedicated on June 7, 1958.
In 1979, a rear addition was built by Robert E. Schwartz & Associates, an architecture firm in Midland. Two original windows were closed, and the public entrance to the courtroom was moved to the back. The open stairway in the central lobby was replaced with an enclosed stairway in the front entrance. Because the land sloped, a fourth floor was added, opening at ground level on the back.
In 2003, the front entrance on Main Street was closed for security reasons to reduce the risk of weapons being brought into the courthouse.
In 2018, the courthouse was renovated to restore public access through the Main Street entrance and update the interior for safety and efficiency. Changes included new elevators, electrical systems, plumbing, locked courtroom entrances, special access for judges, glass partitions to separate the public from court clerks, and a new hallway for moving inmates between courtrooms and the sally port. The project originally cost $7.8 million but had a $660,000 increase due to HVAC and fire suppression upgrades. Funding came from the Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation, the Rollin M. Gerstacker Foundation, the Charles J. Strosacker Foundation, and the Dow Chemical Company Foundation, along with Midland County. Additional support was provided by the Michigan Baseball Foundation, Dow Chemical Company, and the Alden and Vada Dow Family Foundation.
Courthouse
The Midland County Courthouse is a three-story building designed in the Tudor Revival style. It is about 117 feet long and 56 to 90 feet deep. The building is built on a raised area, so only two floors are visible from the front. The main roof is hipped, with two gable ends that extend outward. The roof is covered with orange, red, and tan clay tiles. The base of the building is made of fieldstone up to the windowsills. Above that, the walls are made of stucco. The second floor is supported by wooden beams under the roof's eaves. The gable ends and dormers have windows on the second floor.
The original courthouse had 56 rooms, 16 closets, and 7 vaults. The basement housed offices for public works and the sheriff. The first floor included offices for the treasurer, clerk, register of deeds, and a probate courtroom. The second floor contained circuit court rooms, judges' chambers, and lawyers' work areas. The top floor was the central lobby. There was also a third floor under the roof peak, which included sleeping areas and bathrooms for jurors of both genders.
In 1927, a group of paintings was displayed in the courthouse lobby. The paintings were created by Biron Roger, an artist from Detroit. They show the history of Midland County. The first painting shows a Chippewa man carrying a deer into his village. The second painting depicts a pioneer couple standing over a sleeping baby in a cradle. The third painting shows a lumberjack cutting down a tree during the county's 50-year lumber boom. The fourth painting shows a woman planting seeds on a farm. The fifth painting shows Herbert Dow standing over Midland with the title "The Sower." A sixth painting was planned, called "The Return of the Soldiers," but the county ran out of money, and the artist became ill. The sixth frame includes the words, "The artist has depicted the past. Your deeds will determine the future."