From the 22nd Judicial Circuit Court of Missouri website:
On February 9, 1923, the residents of the City of St. Louis voted a bond
issue in the amount of $87 million for extensive city improvements, including
the construction of the Civil Courts Building. The cornerstone of the new
courthouse was laid February 3, 1928, and the building was dedicated and
occupied on June 21, 1930. (Cost - $4,520,000). The architectural staff of the
City of St. Louis Plaza Commission designed it.
Rising 255 feet above ground level, the building assumes the noble design
of a Greek temple, a replica of the tomb of Mausolus at Halicarnassus, one of
the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. A massive colonnade of 32 Ionic columns
surrounds the building, eight on each side. Each column, which is made up of a
base, 6 fluted drums, and a cap, is about 42 feet high, 5 1/2 feet in diameter,
and weighs about 65 tons.
The material in the columns, as well as the facing for the exterior of the
entire building, comprise more than 15,000 pieces of limestone, quarried and
milled at Bedford, Indiana. An eagle is perched at each of the four corners of
the building above the colonnade. A frieze of griffins encircles the building
below the colonnade.
The
pyramidal-shaped roof of the building is made of cast aluminum. At the summit,
there are two Greek sphinx-like figures, one facing east, and the other facing
west. Each has the body of a lion, the wings of an eagle, and the face of a
woman, with the fleur-de-lis of St. Louis adorned on the chest. Each measures 20
feet long, 12 feet wide and 12 feet tall. They too are made of aluminum which,
together with the aluminum of the pyramidal roof, were connected with the steel
framework of the building, serving as a lightning conductor. The two sphinx-like
forms, towering 380 feet above the sidewalk, are hollow, the interior of each
resembling a room of ordinary size, to which access is gained through an opening
at the base.
Except for some of the ornamentation, the design of the Civil Courts
Building carefully follows the original design of the ancient tomb; however, at
the top, the sphinx-like figures were substituted for the sculpture of a 4-horse
chariot driven by Mausolus and Artemisia.