Morehouse Parish Courthouse - Bastrop, Louisiana - U.S. National Register of Historic Places on Waymarking.com

"The Morehouse Parish Courthouse (1914) is a monumental Beaux Arts building located in a courthouse square setting in the heart of downtown Bastrop. The walls are in beige brick veneer, with numerous details in off-white cast concrete. The main original block rises in stages to four stories, culminating in a faceted dome on a high drum. Downtown Bastrop is on a crest of land and the courthouse site itself is elevated about two feet, with the result that the dome can be seen at a distance. Despite the largely new interior and extensive additions (to the sides and copying the original architecture), the building’s impressive Beaux Arts character stands forth, providing the rural parish with its greatest architectural landmark. The courthouse is in excellent condition thanks to a multi-million dollar project completed in 2001.

The Morehouse Parish Courthouse epitomizes a kind of flamboyant classicism for public buildings which reached its peak nationally in about 1900 and was thereafter in decline as a more rigid and mannered style came into fashion. The original portion of the building consists of a massive colossal entrance portico (in antis), the dome structure and the threebay wings on either side of the portico. Here are found traditional elements of Beaux Arts classicism -- advancing and receding wall planes, an operatic building up of massing, the strongly scaled portico with its coupled brick pilasters and Tuscan columns, the massive two-stage parapet and, of course, the drum and dome. More than a full story in height, the octagonal drum has heavy multiple bases. Its corners are accented with coupled pilasters whose mass is registered in the surmounting entablature. The four-stage dome features clocks on four sides redolent of fashionable Beaux Arts rooftop figure sculpture. Additionally, the drum is marked by a large ornamental filigree window on each facet. The faceted conical roof culminates in a diminutive cupola." ~ National Register nomination form

Street address: 125 E. Madison Bastrop, Louisiana County / Borough / Parish: Morehouse Parish Year listed: 2002 Historic (Areas of) Significance: Architecture/Engineering Periods of significance: 1900-1924 Historic function: Government - Courthouse Current function: Government - Courthouse Primary Web Site: [Web Link] Secondary Website 1: [Web Link] Privately owned?: Not Listed Season start / Season finish: Not listed Hours of operation: Not listed Secondary Website 2: Not listed National Historic Landmark Link: Not listed

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