Lackawanna County Courthouse - Scranton, PA
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N 41° 24.501 W 075° 39.753
18T E 444624 N 4584300
Lackawanna County Courthouse is located at 200 North Washington Avenue in Scranton, PA.
Waymark Code: WM6RB1
Location: Pennsylvania, United States
Date Posted: 07/12/2009
Views: 11
The Lackawanna County Courthouse is historically significant as the site of the first session of the Anthracite Coal Strike Commission, appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt in the fall of 1902 to end the "Great Strike" of the anthracite coal workers. This strike was one of the largest and most important strikes in American history. The Strike Commission hearings represented the first non-violent, even-handed intervention by the Federal government in a labor dispute. The most celebrated witness to testify in the hearings was the legendary labor leader John Mitchell, organizer and leader of the anthracite coal workers and President of the United Mine Workers of America (UMW). Mitchell's role in the "Great Strike" and other endeavors gained him hero status in the anthracite region, and in 1924 the UMW erected a posthumous memorial to Mitchell in the courthouse square.
The Lackawanna County Courthouse occupies a 4.7-acre lot bounded by Washington Avenue, Linden Street, Adams Avenue, and Spruce Street in downtown Scranton. The Courthouse is a three-and-one-half-story, rectangular plan, masonry building measuring approximately 100 by 140 feet with a raised basement, hipped roof, and a five-story clock tower. The foundation and walls are finished with rough-cut, coursed, local stone and the roof is sheathed with tile shingles while the water table, stringcourses, window sills, lintels, and buttress caps are trimmed with Onondago limestone. The courthouse property includes the stone courthouse, originally built in 1884 in the Romanesque Revival style and enlarged in 1896 with the addition of a third story and the reconstruction of the roof, and the 1924 John Mitchell Monument, sculpted in bronze and granite. The 1924 John Mitchell Monument fronts Adams Avenue southeast of the courthouse. The monument consists of four sections: a heroic-sized bronze statue, a granite monolith containing a niche in the southeast facade, and two low, curved, granite benches flanking either side of the granite monolith. A bronze statue of John Mitchell stands atop a granite block that is inscribed with the words "John Mitchell (1870-1919)."
The Lackawanna County Courthouse and John Mitchell Monument are located in a square surrounded by Washington Avenue, Linden Street, Adams Avenue, and Spruce Street in Scranton. The Courthouse is open during normal business hours.
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