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 Independence County Courthouse - Batesville Commercial Historic District - Batesville, Ar. Posted by:  iconions
N 35° 46.218 W 091° 39.197
15S E 621731 N 3959308
This two-story masonry building is located at 192 E Main Street in Batesville, Ar.
Waymark Code: WMNQHY
Location: Arkansas, United States
Date Posted: 04/19/2015
Views: 1
This building is in good shape and is currently being used for the County Courthouse.
Date of Construction: 1940
A two-story, stone masonry institutional building with a raised basement and a Batesville marble exterior. It features a symmetrical, roughly "H"-shaped plan. The central, taller section of the building is five bays in length along the northern or Main Street elevation and accessed via a central, double-leaf entry. The lower, flanking sections are a single bay across. The eastern and western are each five bays in length. The building is fenestrated throughout with metal casement and awning windows, virtually all of which are original. It rests upon a concrete foundation and is covered with a flat roof.
The Independence County Courthouse was designed by the Little Rock architectural firm of Wittenberg and Deloney in 1940 to replace the High Victorian Gothic courthouse that had stood on the site since the 1880's but which burned in 1939 (this had been the site of the county courthouse since 1857). It was designed in the Art Deco style and remains Batesville's finest example of this style. Its symmetrical plan and elevations, coupled with the emphasis upon large areas of uninterrupted wall surface, and the spare and symmetrically-applied geometric, stylized Classical ornament render it a pure Art Deco design. The only landscape feature of note is the 1907 stone Confederate monument which was moved to this location in 1940.
- National Register Application
Independence County was the ninth county to be formed in Arkansas and was the fourth after the Arkansas territory was created. The Act creating the county passed by the Territorial legislature was signed by James Miller, governor of the Arkansas territory, on October 23, 1820.
As originally formed, the county included a large area of land extending from the mouth of Little Red River to the Missouri line and included all or parts of Fulton, Baxter, Sharp, Izard, Stone, Cleburne, Van Buren, White, Jackson and Woodruff Counties. The first courthouse was built at Batesville and the county seat has remained in the town of Batesville.
The first post office at Batesville was opened as Poke Creek November 7, 1820, with Charles Kelly, the county’s first sheriff, as postmaster. The name of the office was officially changed to Batesville on January 7, 1824.
An early Arkansas settlement was established at the Batesville site. There is a record of a John Read opening a store there in 1812 and there is also an authentic record of John Luttig’s store, which had a $5,500 stock of goods at the site in 1815. Poke Bayou was visited by the writer Henry R. Schoolcraft, who described the Arkansas settlement as a village of a dozen houses in 1819.
The county grew steadily in its first forty years of existence and in 1860 had reached a population of 14,307, although the land area had been substantially reduced. Independence County was fourth in population among the state’s counties in 1860.
The county has furnished three Arkansas governors, Thomas S. Drew, Elisha Baxter and William R. Miller.
- Independence County website
Name of Historic District (as listed on the NRHP): Batesville Commercial Historic District
Link to nationalregisterofhistoricplaces.com page with the Historic District: [Web Link]
NRHP Historic District Waymark (Optional): [Web Link]
Address:
192 E Main Street
Batesville, Ar. 72501
How did you determine the building to be a contributing structure?: Narrative found on the internet (Link provided below)
Optional link to narrative or database: [Web Link]
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