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 Yell County Courthouse - Dardanelle, Arkansas Posted by:  iconions
N 35° 13.443 W 093° 09.366
15S E 485794 N 3897900
This two-story Classical Revival red brick building is located at 209 Union Street in Dardanelle, Arkansas.
Waymark Code: WMWB0Q
Location: Arkansas, United States
Date Posted: 08/05/2017
Views: 0
The Yell County Courthouse is a courthouse in Dardanelle, Arkansas, United States, one of two county seats of Yell County, built in 1914. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992. The courthouse is the second building to serve the Dardanelle district of Yell County.
Yell County was founded from portions of Scott and Pope counties in 1840. A courthouse was established at Monrovia, but was soon relocated to Danville to be more centrally located. Following the Civil War in 1875, Dardanelle was made a second county seat. Arkansas has ten counties with dual county seats. A commercial building on Front Street between Green and Oak Streets in Dardanelle was made into the district's first courthouse in 1875, and a jail was built close by. The courthouse burned on April 12, 1912, leading the county to buy a new plot of land on Union Street. Yell County contracted architect Frank W. Gibb, who in his lifetime designed 60 courthouses in Arkansas as well as the Arkansas Building at the St. Louis World's Fair and the Buckstaff Bathhouse in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Contractor L.R. Wight and Company of Dallas, Texas built the structure for under $25,000 (equivalent to $598,000 today).
Similar to the Dallas County Courthouse in Fordyce built by Gibb in 1911, the building features typical details of the neoclassical style. The symmetric facade with doric columns and white trim all fit with the style. An octagonal roof ornament tops the T-shaped building.
The Dardanelle Confederate Monument is located near the Yell County Courthouse on Union Street in Dardanelle. Erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) in 1921, the monument was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1996 as part of the Civil War Commemorative Sculpture Multiple Property Submission.
The UDC raised $1760 ($23,632 today) to construct the monument between two banks in downtown Dardanelle. Following the completion of a new bridge over the Arkansas River in 1930, the UDC suggested it be moved so that "all who crossed the bridge would find themselves face to face with the image in marble of the greatest soldier in the world - the Confederate soldier." The monument was moved to the southeast corner of the courthouse grounds, where it has remained ever since. The monument formerly contained plumbing allowing it to operate as a fountain which has since been removed.
An inscription reads: "To the Confederate soldiers of Yell County, in appreciation of their splendid valor and loyalty, this monument is erected".
- Wikipedia Entry
Constructed in 1914, the Yell County Courthouse is a T-shaped, two story, brick and concrete masonry public institutional building designed in the Classical Revival style of architecture. The structure is supported by a continuous concrete foundation and topped with a gabled roof which bisects an octagonal, sectional dome. On top of the dome is a domed cupola which is supported by six small Doric columns with a central flag pole extending through the cupola dome.
The roof is surrounded by a tall parapet made of stucco-covered brick adorned with pilasters that rise along the full height of the elevations. The parapet rests atop a full entablature which consists of a narrow architrave, a wide frieze board and a narrow cornice. The overall appearance of the structure is a symmetrical facade which is framed by corner pilasters. The southern elevation has a double-leaf entry with the fenestration of the facade symmetrical on both the first and second story. Centered on the southern elevation is a central pedimented portico. The pediment features an oculus window and a wide frieze board. The entire pediment is supported by four large Doric columns. Another feature of the portico is a narrow, second story, cantilevered balcony above the double leaf front entrance. Pilasters are found on each corner of the structure as well as symmetrical placement of pilasters on the eastern, southern, and western elevations.
All the windows of the structure have white concrete lintels and sills. The lintels of the second story windows are incorporated into the entablature. The windows of the structure are double-hung with a two-over-one sash arrangement. Both the southern and western elevations have transom windows over a double-leaf entrance. The eastern elevation does not have a transom over the door but has a transom effect with the placement of two small windows over the large central windows which serve to illuminate an interior stairwell. Both the eastern and western elevations have modern gabled porches extending from double-leaf entrances.
HISTORY of CONSTRUCTION
County Judge J.N. George along with Commissioners A.N. Falls and T.E. Wilson engaged Frank W. Gibb of Little Rock as the architect for the new courthouse and the L.R. Wight and Company of Dallas, Texas as the builders. Although trained as an engineer at the Missouri School of Mines at Rolla, Mo., Gibb returned to Little Rock in 1882 for a career as a Civil and Mining Engineer. It seems that not long after his return to Little Rock is when he began to do some work as an architect for his father Edward Gibb and his real estate interests. Gibb is not widely known as an architect but some of his works are more familiar. He is credited with designing the Arkansas Building at the St. Louis World's Fair, the Buckstaff Baths in Hot Springs, the First United Methodist Church at Eighth and Center in Little Rock, the old Little Rock High School, the Logan Roots Memorial Hospital, and buildings at the Arkansas State Lunatic Asylum. He is also known for designing courthouses and jails around the state in Ashley, Bradley, Galhoun, Chicot, Cleburne, Conway, Crawford, Cross, Dallas, Franklin, Howard, Jefferson, Lafayette, Miller, Phillips, and Saline counties as well as Yell. In his obituary of November 5, 1932, Gibb is credited with work on 60 courthouses in Arkansas. One reason that most of his work is not well known is that the contents of his office on the second floor of the Gazette building -- including drawings, specifications, sketches, etc. -- were destroyed by his family soon after his death. None of his original drawings are known to exist.
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