1902 - Grant County Courthouse - Lancaster, Wisconsin - Dated Buildings and Cornerstones on Waymarking.com

In shady Courthouse Square is the red brick COURTHOUSE with a gleaming dome of copper and green glass. Within the building a sealed box bears the inscription, "Accursed be he who openeth me ere a hundred years are gone." The box was sealed in 1876 during the country's celebration of the 100th anniversary of American Independence and contains issues of the county newspapers, agricultural products raised at that time, and the like.

The Grant County Courthouse is the only building occupying Lancaster's courthouse square.

A commercial district, the city's central business district, surrounds the square with unusually handsome and well-maintained, primarily-nineteenth-century, storefront buildings The three-story courthouse is cross-shaped in plan with brick walls and Lake Superior brownstone trim, belt courses and window pediments. Three types of brick are found in the exterior walls: red clay bricks at the basement, glazed brown bricks at the first story, and light-brown bricks on the upper stories. The straight-forward design uses fluted brownstone pilasters on all four facades to provide a neo-classical feeling that is reinforced by triangular pediments over windows, and other details.

An octagonal glass-and-copper dome dominates the building. Roof ornamentation is also of copper, and all copper in the building has weathered to a characteristic green color. Contemporary accounts reveal the construction of the dome and the copper trim and ornament resulted in a see-saw battle regarding their employment in the building or replacement with galvanized iron and elimination of the dome. Construction began in 1902 with the intent to use iron and build no dome. After the cornerstone was laid, however, the county judge, in a stirring speech defending the dome and copper, inspired a return to the original plans of the architect, Armand Koch. The extra funds required were generated by raising taxes and issuing $12,000 in bonds.

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