Bradley County Courthouse

This lofty two-story brick courthouse is the earliest and one of the most ornate of the nine classically influenced courthouses Gibb designed. The building embodies the ambitious self-image of the county’s citizens about to embark on decades of growth and prosperity made possible by midwestern entrepreneurs who had poured into the region to harvest the pine forests. The courthouse’s facade is composed of a central block flanked by symmetrical towers. The taller at four and a half stories has clock faces on each of the four sides on the fourth floor and is topped by a cupola. The second tower rises only one floor above the building’s roof and has an open arcade around its third floor. A central entrance porch is carried on Tuscan columns, and rusticated quoins of brown brick articulate the building’s corners. The principal courtroom occupies the entire second floor, entered by a single staircase rising in the center of the courtroom, and its arched windows are covered by wooden panels. The two-story rear addition of 2003 blends with the original structure. This is the third courthouse on the site, replacing ones dating to 1843 and 1861. Adjacent to the courthouse on the east is the county clerk’s building, a one-story plain brick structure of 1890.