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Lake County Courthouse

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1926–1927, Frank P. Allen and Sons. 800 10th St.
  • (Photograph by Balthazar Korab)
  • (Photograph by Balthazar Korab)

From its location at the head of Michigan Avenue, the village of Baldwin's main street, the courthouse faces south and presides over the community. The red brick neo-Georgian courthouse is the finest public building in Lake County. The boxlike building has flanking one-story wings and an elaborate pedimented portico supported by pilasters and paired colossal Corinthian columns. A decorative cornice with dentil blocks encircles the building. The interior is trimmed extensively with oak woodwork. Allen and Sons of Grand Rapids, authors of Artistic Dwellings from $700 Upwards (1891), designed the courthouse; Cadillac Cabinet and Construction built it. Baldwin was designated the seat of Lake County government in 1887, sixteen years after the county was set off from Mason County in 1871 and at the outset of its twenty-year logging period. Long before the present courthouse was built, the county's economy had turned to recreational hunting, fishing, boating, and camping.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Kathryn Bishop Eckert
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Data

What's Nearby

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Citation

Kathryn Bishop Eckert, "Lake County Courthouse", [Baldwin, Michigan], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/MI-01-LK1.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of Michigan

Buildings of Michigan, Kathryn Bishop Eckert. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012, 396-397.

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