ALABAMA HERITAGE
  • Magazine
    • Current and Back Issues >
      • Back Issues 141-150 >
        • Issue 147, Winter 2023
        • Issue 146, Fall 2022
        • Issue 145, Summer 2022
        • Issue 144, Spring 2022
        • Issue 143, Winter 2022
        • Issue 142, Fall 2021
        • Issue 141, Summer 2021
      • Back Issues 131-140 >
        • Issue 140, Spring 2021
        • Issue 139, Winter 2021
        • Issue 138, Fall 2020
        • Issue 137, Summer 2020
        • Issue 136, Spring 2020
        • Issue 135, Winter 2020
        • Issue 134, Fall 2019
        • Issue 133, Summer 2019
        • Issue 132 Spring 2019
        • Issue 131, Winter 2019
      • Back Issues 121-130 >
        • Issue 130, Fall 2018
        • Issue 129, Summer 2018
        • Issue 128, Spring 2018
        • Issue 127, Winter 2018
        • Issue 126, Fall 2017
        • Issue 125 Summer 2017
        • Issue 124, Spring 2017
        • Issue 123, Winter 2017
        • Issue 122, Fall 2016
        • Issue 121, Summer 2016
      • Back Issues 111-120 >
        • Issue 120, Spring 2016
        • Issue 119, Winter 2016
        • Issue 118, Fall 2015
        • Issue 117, Summer 2015
        • Issue 116, Spring 2015
        • Issue 115, Winter 2015
        • Issue 114, Fall 2014
        • Issue 113, Summer 2014
        • Issue 112, Spring 2014
        • Issue 111, Winter 2014
      • Back Issues 101-110 >
        • Issue 110, Fall 2013
        • Issue 109, Summer 2013
        • Issue 108, Spring 2013
        • Issue 107, Winter 2013
        • Issue 106, Fall 2012
        • Issue 105, Summer 2012
        • Issue 104, Spring 2012
        • Issue 103, Winter 2012
        • Issue 102, Fall 2011
        • Issue 101, Summer 2011
      • Back Issues 91-100 >
        • Issue 100, Spring 2011
        • Issue 99, Winter 2011
        • Issue 98, Fall 2010
        • Issue 97, Summer 2010
        • Issue 96, Spring 2010
        • Issue 95, Winter 2010
        • Issue 94, Fall 2009
        • Issue 93, Summer 2009
        • Issue 92, Spring 2009
        • Issue 91, Winter 2009
      • Back Issues 81-90 >
        • Issue 90, Fall 2008
        • Issue 89, Summer 2008
        • Issue 88, Spring 2008
        • Issue 87, Winter 2008
        • Issue 86, Fall 2007
        • Issue 85, Summer 2007
        • Issue 84, Spring 2007
        • Issue 83, Winter 2007
        • Issue 82, Fall 2006
        • Issue 81, Summer 2006
      • Back Issues 71-80 >
        • Issue 80, Spring 2006
        • Issue 79, Winter 2006
        • Issue 78, Fall 2005
        • Issue 77, Summer 2005
        • Issue 76, Spring 2005
        • Issue 75, Winter 2005
        • Issue 74, Fall 2004
        • Issue 73, Summer 2004
        • Issue 72, Spring 2004
        • Issue 71, Winter 2004
      • Back Issues 61-70 >
        • Issue 70, Fall 2003
        • Issue 69, Summer 2003
        • Issue 68, Spring 2003
        • Issue 67, Winter 2003
        • Issue 66, Fall 2002
        • Issue 65, Summer 2002
        • Issue 64, Spring 2002
        • Issue 63, Winter 2002
        • Issue 62, Fall 2001
        • Issue 61, Summer 2001
      • Back Issues 51-60 >
        • Issue 60, Spring 2001
        • Issue 59, Winter 2001
        • Issue 58, Fall 2000
        • Issue 57, Summer 2000
        • Issue 56, Spring 2000
        • Issue 55, Winter 2000
        • Issue 54, Fall 1999
        • Issue 53, Summer 1999
        • Issue 52, Spring 1999
        • Issue 51, Winter 1999
      • Back Issues 41-50 >
        • Issue 50, Fall 1998
        • Issue 49, Summer 1998
        • Issue 48, Spring 1998
        • Issue 47, Winter 1998
        • Issue 46, Fall 1997
        • Issue 45, Summer 1997
        • Issue 44, Spring 1997
        • Issue 43, Winter 1997
        • Issue 42, Fall 1996
        • Issue 41, Summer 1996
      • Back Issues 31-40 >
        • Issue 40, Spring 1996
        • Issue 39, Winter 1996
        • Issue 38, Fall 1995
        • Issue 37, Summer 1995
        • Issue 36, Spring 1995
        • Issue 35, Winter 1995
        • Issue 34, Fall 1994
        • Issue 33, Summer 1994
        • Issue 32, Spring 1994
        • Issue 31, Winter 1994
      • Back Issues 21-30 >
        • Issue 30, Fall 1993
        • Issue 29, Summer 1993
        • Issue 28, Spring 1993
        • Issue 27, Winter 1993
        • Issue 26, Fall 1992
        • Issue 25, Summer 1992
        • Issue 24, Spring 1992
        • Issue 23, Winter 1992
        • Issue 22, Fall 1991
        • Issue 21, Summer 1991
      • Back Issues 11-20 >
        • Issue 20, Spring 1991
        • Issue 19, Winter 1991
        • Issue 18, Fall 1990
        • Issue 17, Summer 1990
        • Issue 16, Spring 1990
        • Issue 15, Winter 1990
        • Issue 14, Fall 1989
        • Issue 13, Summer 1989
        • Issue 12, Spring 1989
        • Issue 11, Winter 1989
      • Back Issues 1-10 >
        • Issue 10, Fall 1988
        • Issue 9, Summer 1988
        • Issue 8, Spring 1988
        • Issue 7, Winter 1988
        • Issue 6, Fall 1987
        • Issue 5, Summer 1987
        • Issue 4, Spring 1987
        • Issue 3, Winter 1987
        • Issue 2, Fall 1986
        • Issue 1, Summer 1986
    • Digital Features
    • Links of Interest
    • Bonus Materials >
      • Adventures in Genealogy
      • Alabama Heritage Blog
      • Alabama Territory
      • Becoming Alabama >
        • Creek War Era
        • Civil War Era
        • Civil Rights Movement
      • From the Vault
      • History in Ruins
      • Places in Peril
      • Recipes
  • Online Store
    • Customer Service
  • About Us
    • Awards
    • Meet Our Team
    • News
    • Writer's Guidelines and Submissions
  • Search
  • Donate
Published by The University of Alabama,
The University of Alabama at Birmingham,
and the Alabama Department of Archives and History

The 'Mockingbird' Courthouse

2/26/2020

 
a picture of the Monroe County Courthouse.
(Photo by Robin McDonald)
Arguably no Alabama courthouse is better known nor more frequently visited-especially by those not on legal business-than the Monroe County Courthouse, built in 1903. The fame that Harper Lee's novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, has brought to the building has attracted thousand of the novel's admirers to tour it.
​After substantial and thoughtful restoration, the old Monroe County Courthouse now serves as the centerpiece of the Monroe County Heritage Museums complex. There, the Mockingbird buff may stand just where Atticus Finch defended Tom Robinson, to absorb all the atmosphere of the scene in the courtroom that appears quite as it did in the 1930s, when the novel is set. 

Prior to the construction of this courthouse, Monroe County had lived a long time with its first "permanent" courthouse, the two-story unpretentious rectangular brick building that had served since the original log structure was replaced in the 1830s. To match its ambitions for the new twentieth-century world, Monroe needed an up-to-date courthouse, it seemed to the county's leaders, and to Probate Judge Nicholas J. Stallworth in particular. It had to be efficient for the growing county administration and handsome to impress visitors and prospective contributors to the county's population and wealth. From the designs submitted, the county commissioners decided the work of architect Andrew J. Bryan provided just what they required. As an architect working out of Atlanta, Bryan had designed many courthouses, including the impressive Lee County courthouse in Opelika and the nearby Muscogee County courthouse in Columbus, Georgia. Following Bryan's move to New Orleans, his commissions in the .Monroe County neighborhood included the Dale County courthouse in Ozark and the Coffee County courthouse in Elba. 

The magnificently proportioned dome of the Monroe County Courthouse may be its most striking feature, but the design provided by Bryan gave the building two more unusual exterior features. Rather than centering a principal entrance on the main facade, he placed two entrances at forty-five degree angles to the street elevation, making the building appear from the front to be three arms of a Greek cross. From the sides (though one side is now obscured by a modern addition), Bryan did not attach the fourth arm of the cross, but instead designed a large oval structure, embedded between the front cross and a smaller rectangular rear structure. This, then, is the Bryan program-cross, oval, rectangle-as one proceeds from front to rear through the building's shapes.
​From his offices in New Orleans, Bryan wrote to Judge Stallworth in Monroeville:
"I am sending by to-days express a set of plans and specifications of your new Court House . .. . The plans as they are now finished, I think, make the nicest and most beautiful Court House that was ever built in the State of Alabama, and I am sure that you will all be highly pleased with it." 
The Monroe County Courthouse dome and other effects and embellishments were features of many contemporaneous courthouses. Bryan had designed a number of similar courthouse domes, greatly admired for their pleasing proportions. Other architects and builders of the time were creating comparable domes and cupolas on courthouses all over the South. The courthouse might have stood out from other brick structures in Monroeville for its ochre color, but variations on the usual brick-red were increasingly common in courthouses built in the period. A fine bell was installed from the McShane Bell Foundry in Baltimore and a state of the art clock from Boston's Howard Clock Company. Both companies supplied hundreds of courthouse rowers with their equipment. Still, neither the somewhat unusual color of the brick, nor the bell, nor the clock, nor the tastefully restrained interior woodwork, constituted the "beauty" of the building so much as did the plan. At the time it was a notable departure from ordinary courthouse planning. If Bryan thought his building the "most" beautiful, then the plan must account for that distinction. Although Bryan later produced at least five other courthouses with a central "curvilinear" element, the Monroe County building is the only one in which the central element is oval; in all the rest, it is circular. 

After the passing of a century since the building was finished, it remains an important landmark, if for nothing else than its literary fame. And although we cannot be entirely sure how much admiration it received or how well it worked as a courthouse, it was with evident satisfaction that the Monroe Journal published this report in its October 29, 1903, issue:
"[The Monroe County} court house now in progress of construction will be an ornament to the county, and so handsome and massive a structure should be regarded a tower of strength to the good people, and a menace to the wrong doers and should awaken an amount of pride in all to stimulate the better element in every nature into activity, and with a forward march of progress and action redeem the reputation of one of the best counties in Alabama." 
Andrew Bryan's design in Monroe County and the similar courthouses he designed for Dothan, Alabama; LaGrange, Georgia; Gulfport, Mississippi; and Franklinron and Minden, Louisiana, were quite in tune with the enthusiasm of local boosters who led their communities in this spirit. Bryan may have been more restrained in embellishments and more correct in period details than many of his peers, but he was no less skilled and imaginative in providing the architectural exuberance his clients demanded. One can see it still in Monroeville. 

This feature was previously published in Issue 69, Summer 2003.

About the Author
Delos D. Hughes is Emeritus Professor of Politics at Washington and Lee University and divides his time between Lexington, Virginia, and his hometown, Auburn, Alabama. 
Subscribe to Alabama Heritage

Comments are closed.

    From the Vault

    Read complete classic articles and departments featured in Alabama Heritage magazine in the past 35 years of publishing. You'll find in-depth features along with quirky and fun departments that cover the people, places, and events that make our state great!

    Read More From the Vault

    Archives

    February 2023
    January 2023
    August 2022
    June 2022
    February 2022
    June 2021
    May 2021
    July 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    April 2015
    July 2014
    April 2014
    October 2013
    October 2012
    July 2012
    October 2009

    Categories

    All
    African Americans
    Agriculture
    Alabama
    Archeaology
    Architecture
    Avondale
    Avondale Zoo
    Birmingham
    Business
    Cathedral Caverns
    Civil War
    Constitution
    Cuba
    Episcopal Church
    Food
    Guntersville
    Hollywood
    Hunting
    Murder
    Mystery
    National Guard
    Native American
    Nursing
    Photography
    Poarch Creek Indians
    Politics
    Preservation
    Quilts
    Religion
    Revolutionary War
    Sand Mountain
    Whiskey
    Women
    WWI
    WWII

    RSS Feed

Online Store
​Customer Service
Meet Our Team
Board of Directors
Corporate Sponsors
News
Join Our Email List

Employment
UA Disclaimer
UA Privacy Policy ​
​Website comments or questions?  

Email ah.online@ua.edu
Published by The University of Alabama, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, and the Alabama Department of Archives and History
​Alabama Heritage
Box 870342
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487
Local: (205) 348-7467
Toll-Free: (877) 925-2323
Fax: (205) 348-7473

alabama.heritage@ua.edu