Baxter County Courthouse - Mountain Home, Arkansas. - WPA Projects on Waymarking.com

Located in the center of the courthouse square in Mountain Home, the Baxter County Courthouse is a three-story, public building constructed by the WPA (Works Progress Administration) between 1941. and 1943. The minimalist style of the building reflects a Functional emphasis common to depression-era public works projects.

The Baxter County Courthouse is located on the courthouse square in Mountain Home which is created by Main, Baxter, 6th and 7th streets. It is a three-story, public building designed by Fayetteville architect T. Ewing Shelton in the Plain/Traditional style with minimal Art Deco influences, and constructed by the WPA. It is of cut stone construction with buff brick veneered walls. This rectangular plan structure has a full basement and rests on a rough faced cut stone foundation that was laid on solid rock. Tr is capped by a flat built-up tar roof. One interior brick chimney rises from the center of the northern edge of the roof. All of the windows in the building are aluminum Frame with a large upper stationary pane over a smaller rectangular hopper.

The building is decorated with marble panels in a variety of patterns. The first decorative marble is found in a string course created by one layer of rectangular blocks between the foundation and the first storey. A second course divides the first and second storeys, and is created by two layers of rectangular blocks, the lower layer containing the same size blocks as in the first string course and the upper formed by thinner blocks of the same length laid with their centers over the joints between the lower blocks. On the second and third levels marble squares are found in vertical rows between the recessed window panels, marble quoins accent the corners of a main projection, and six rows of various sizes of marble panels form a plain yet complex cornice along the roofline of the projection. The walls of the roofline not included in the facade projection are decorated with a simpler cornice similar in design to the string course running between the first and second storeys.

Concrete steps with one set of cut stone piers and one set of brick piers lead to the main entrance of the symmetrically-massed front or southern elevation, which is dominated by a central projection. A slightly recessed enhance is formed by centrally located double-leaf glass doors in metal casings with sidelights and a light transom. A simple concrete frame around this entrance is decorated by a scalloped pattern above the light transom. To the east of the doors are two windows; the wall then recedes to the north approximately one foot, and one window completes the eastern half of the front elevation. This pattern is repeated on the western half of the front elevation with a pair of windows to the west of the entrance doors, followed by a one foot recession to the north, and one more window, The recessions create the appearance of a large central projection. The tops of the second story windows and the bottoms of the third floor windows on the projection are joined. These seven sets of windows are slightly recessed from the main wall.