Wyandotte County Courthouse - Kansas City, Kansas - U.S. National Register of Historic Places on Waymarking.com

The Wyandotte County Courthouse is a Classical Revival style, six-story masonry structure that occupies the east half of a rectangular block that is west of the Kansas City, Kansas historic central business district. Facing east onto North 7th Street, this courthouse is almost square in plan. The structure is dressed Indiana limestone laid in running bond. The primary facade measures approximately 132 feet and features hexastyle Doric columns in antis without bases supporting a full Greek Doric entablature. The jail, which has a flat roof, occupies the top (fifth) floor and is set back from the primary facade. Except for the window replacements and the addition of the west annex, the courthouse has excellent architectural integrity and retains nearly all of its original exterior and interior features. Erected in 1925-1927 as a county courthouse, the structure continues to serve as a county courthouse.

Designed in the Doric order, this building has 13 bays on the east and west trades and nine bays on the north and south trades. The exterior is dressed Indiana limestone laid in running bond. The seven center bays of the west facade are recessed. Flat piers, extending the full height of the building, define the building corners and enframe the window bays. Dressed limestone also defines the building's decorative masonry features such as the door enframements and pedimented hoods (at the primary facade), and cornice, which is decorated with mutules. Below them, patera are placed on the metopes between the triglyphs.

New metal-clad, one-over-one light, double-hung sash windows with mirrored glazing replaced the original windows. Opaque transom panels enclose the upper fourth of each window opening. The original metal enframements and ornamented spandrels of the tripartite windows are intact. Fenestration at the three end bays of each facade consists of single window configurations. Fenestration at the seven center bays of the east and west trades and the three center bays of the north and south facades consists of single and tripartite window configurations. Tripartite window configurations at the north, south, and east facades are connected in vertical strips with ornamented metal spandrels.

The seven center bays of the primary (east) facade project to create an entrance pavilion supported by six Doric columns. "Wyandotte County Courthouse" is carved in the architrave and in the frieze has alternating triglyphs and metopes. Between the four central columns are paired doors with carved limestone enframements and pedimented hoods with egg-and-dart molding. New, metal frame doors with metal grille work and transoms replace the original doors. A grand staircase, flanked by decorative torcheres, rises from the grade level to the first floor of the building. The courthouse features secondary entrances on the north and south facades also accessed by a grand staircase flanked by decorative torcheres. The west annex currently provides the only public access to the courthouse.