(from the archived RCHC Web site)

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By Scott Barker, Knoxville News-Sentinel – July 6, 2000 – page 1

The Ravages of Time:  Immediate Repairs Crucial To Keep Historic Roane County Courthouse Standing

KINGSTON — Shortly after it was built in 1854, the Roane County Courthouse survived the occupation of both armies during the Civil War.  Since then, it has endured pragmatic renovations and well-intentioned restorations.  It has even outlasted political indifference.

Crowned by a cupola and shaded by venerable maples, the historic courthouse once was the center of public life in Roane County and has been Kingston’s signature landmark for a century and a half.

But water and time may join forces to bring down the Greek-Revival/Federalist structure in the near future, preservationists warn.  The columns and porticos that grace the building’s north and south sides are rotting.  Exterior walls are bowed like swelling bruises, lintels are cracked and floors are warped.

The damage is so severe that an architect has told the Roane County Heritage Commission, which owns the building, that it’s now or never if the courthouse is to be salvaged.

Laura Overstreet, president of the Heritage Commission, said the nonprofit group will have to raise about $500,000 to save the courthouse, one of only six antebellum courthouses still standing in Tennessee; it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Overstreet said the work is absolutely necessary and long overdue.

“If you lived in a house that was built in 1854, don’t you think you’d have to put a lot of money into it every 25 years?” Overstreet said.

The Heritage Commission hired Technical Engineering Consultants of Knoxville to inspect the courthouse and point out places where structural damage threatens the building.  The report notes the building’s warped floors, buckled walls and insufficient framing support.

One of the biggest problems stems from the last renovation project about five years ago.  Overstreet said a contractor improperly installed a new roof that dumps water onto the porticos rather than into interior gutters.  Water also pours into the gaps between the twin brick walls that make up a portion of the structure.

On the bright side, the structure hasn’t settled during its 146-year lifetime, which architect Frank Sparkman in his report to the Heritage Commission termed “amazing.”

This is the second time in the past quarter-century the courthouse has faced the possibility of destruction.  Just after a new courthouse was built one block to the east in 1973, the Roane County Commission planned to raze the structure.  The Roane County Heritage Commission was formed to save the building, and in 1975 the County Commission gave the group the deed to the property.

There was a catch, however:  Commissioners included a stipulation that the owners never ask them for money connected to the building.

But the courthouse’s crumbling condition persuaded the current Roane County Commission to appropriate $50,000 for the restoration effort.  Also, the city of Kingston will give $10,000 over the next two years.  All public money is earmarked for the restoration, Overstreet said.

Overstreet said the Heritage Commission has hired a professional fund-raiser and is asking local businesses and individuals to contribute.  The group has received some grant funding and contributors have been generous, Overstreet said, but the Heritage Commission needs more than $350,000 to meet its goal.

The courthouse was designed by and Frederick B. Guenther and Augustus O. Fisher. Guenther, a German immigrant who laid out the city plot for Wartburg, and Fisher combined Greek Revival and Federalist elements in their design.  According to local legend, slaves built the courthouse from bricks made at the site.

“It’s just magnificent, architecturally,” Jere Hall said while giving a tour of the damaged portions of the building.  Hall is the director of the Roane County Museum of History and Art.  Located in the first floor of the courthouse, the museum is run by the Heritage Commission and contains historical artifacts, some 750,000 county documents dating back to the 1780s and an extensive geneological [sic] research archive.

While no major engagements were fought in Roane County, both Union and Confederate units occupied the building during the Civil War, using it as both a hospital and lookout post.

Clarence Darrow, America’s leading defense lawyer during the first quarter of the 20th century, dropped by for a taste of Tennessee justice before the Scopes Trial in 1925.  Accompanied by his client John Scopes, a newspaper editor and other attorneys, Darrow became outraged as he watched the trial of an apparently slow-witted young man accused of raping and impregnating a young woman.  Darrow had to be restrained from intervening on behalf of the defense and was hustled by his companions from the courtroom.

With the burning of Browder Hardware earlier this year, the historic courthouse and Bethel Presbyterian Church are the only public buildings from before the Civil War that remain in one of Tennessee’s oldest settlements.

Kingston grew up around Fort Southwest in the late 1700s, when the land that is now Roane County was on the frontier.  In 1807, the town served as the capital of the state for one day so Tennessee could technically fulfill the provisions of a treaty with the Cherokee.  The town was a sleepy county seat until workers for the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Manhattan Project swelled the town’s population in the 1940s.

In the old days, hangings were held on gallows built on the courthouse lawn.  Willie Tines, the last person executed in Tennessee before the Supreme Court ban on the death penalty, was tried in the courthouse’s third floor courtroom in 1957.

Roane County’s growth resulted in the need to move county offices and courts into a bigger building, and the current courthouse was completed in 1973.

The historic courthouse “stood here as the seat of our government for 121 years,” Hall said.

Just after taking over the historic courthouse in the 70s, the Heritage Commission renovated the building, which in the intervening years has served as a “small business incubator,” Hall said.  At various times, an ice cream parlor, art galleries and gift shops have called the old place home.

In addition to the museum and archives, tenants include the YWCA, the Southwest Point Daughters of the American Revolution Library, a development company, an insurance agency and an architect.

Overstreet pointed out that, with the historic courthouse downtown and a replica of Fort Southwest partially rebuilt on its original site at the confluence of the Tennessee and Clinch Rivers, Kingston has a pair of historic sites that could attract tourists interested in history.  Overstreet and Hall said preserving the courthouse is not only crucial to maintaining a sense of Roane County’s past, it can play a role in the future as well.

“You want your community to look good,” Overstreet said.  “You don’t want your community to look like a strip mall.”