As the Limestone County Commission embarks upon a $2-$3 million courthouse renovation, it’s difficult to fathom that the entire structure was built for just $200,000 — and that at a $75,000 cost overrun.

Local historian James Croley Smith, who has in the last couple of decades documented in drawings many of the county’s historic structures, was recently poking around in architect Harvey Jones’ donated documents in the University of Alabama in Huntsville Library when he came upon drawings of the Limestone Courthouse that he says have not been widely published.

Smith has since found the drawings on letterheads in files at the Limestone County Archives. A 1915 architectural rendering was found on letterhead in the “Alms” file and a 1919 rendering was found on letterhead in the courthouse file.

“I believe the only time I’ve seen the 1919 rendering was in 1993 for the 175th anniversary observation for the county,” said Smith. He said the 1915 rendering is further authenticated through identifying automobiles depicted on the courthouse square, which appear to be a 1915 Chandler seven-passenger touring car and a 1915 Hudson touring car.

In an editorial in the July 12, 1916, edition of the Alabama Courier, the writer called plans drawn by Birmingham architect, Ben (Bem) Price as meeting “every requirement for the next hundred years.”

The editorial writer was nearly correct. The courthouse did serve the needs of county offices for nearly 100 years, but in 2005, non-court offices were moved to a new multi-million-dollar courthouse annex on Clinton Street. The County Commission hired the Montgomery architectural firm, 2WR, to draw plans for space allocation to the courts and District Attorney Kristi Valls in the courthouse.

When the 1916 County Commission studied plans, the Alabama Courier was one leading the charge to replace the 1836 courthouse, which had caught fire at least twice. The editorial writer commented that, “A hundred thousand dollars would be a very little thing compared to (the loss of records).”

Besides that, the writer said the county deserved such a fine edifice. “Aside from all this, the dignity and the pride of the great county that stands out so prominent in the history of Alabama, demands that the county have a new courthouse, one that will reflect the position of Limestone occupies in the list of great counties of the state.”

According to the Alabama Courier, M.A. Pope purchased the old courthouse for $100 and began dismantling it on a Monday morning in July 1916, “long before many of the citizens awoke from their beauty sleep the purchaser had men on the building and the sound of hammers and axes were heard before the clock struck five...” Within two weeks, the Limestone Democrat reported that the “Limestone County court house is now a thing of the past, the walls having reached the level of the ground Monday…”

Thirteen construction companies bid on the project to build the new courthouse with low bidder Little-Cleckler Construction Co. of Anniston winning the project on a bid of $124,700 with completion 10 months later.

“It was so cheap that they got it,” said Smith. “But Little & Cleckler got caught up in World War I inflation and went broke due to the rise in the cost of war materials. A local company, Johnson & Chambers, took over on a cost-plus basis and finished it up.”

The new courthouse was completed finally in 1919, three years after the project was awarded with the Limestone Democrat calling the $200,000 structure “a palatial home indeed.”

The courthouse housed women’s rest room, Red Cross health room, heating plant, grand jury room, and county superintendent of education on the ground floor; probate judge, record rooms, stairs, tax collector, assessor, sheriff, solicitor and circuit clerk on the second floor, and a “handsome circuit court room extends clear across the north end of the building on the third floor with “handsome seats provided for 350.” There were also jury and consultation rooms, probate court room and county engineer’s office on the third floor.

The Limestone Democrat deemed the building “practically fire proof and a distinct credit to the county, to the commissioners who inaugurated it and those who saw to its completion, as well as to the architect who designed it and the men who did the actual work.”