by Wesley Harris
Some call Lincoln Parish’s current courthouse a collection of bland cracker boxes, or worse, simply unsightly, especially compared to its predecessor.
Including the current structure, three courthouse buildings have served Lincoln Parish.
When Lincoln Parish was created in 1873 by an act of the Louisiana Legislature, Vienna as the largest town was designated as the seat of government. A small, plain, wood-frame courthouse was built to handle parish business.
When the Vicksburg, Shreveport & Pacific Railroad completed its line across north Louisiana, it bypassed Vienna to the south. Ruston was formed a few miles south of Vienna to take advantage of the new railroad. The new town was incorporated in 1884.
In 1886, voters relocated the parish seat to Ruston and the little courthouse building was moved to a mostly barren block bordered by Vienna Street, Louisiana Avenue, Trenton Street, and Texas Avenue.
That diminutive structure—adequate for the 1870s—was never intended to be the long-term home of parish government. The parish police jury determined a new, larger and more formal building was necessary for the growth of the parish.
Construction of a new domed, two-story brick courthouse was begun in 1901 within the same block as the old wooden building. On August 19, 1903, Lincoln Parish formally dedicated the new courthouse in Ruston.
A central dome crowned by a cupola capped the new courthouse. Designed by the noted architect James Riely Gordon, nationally renowned for designing courthouses, state capitols, and post offices from Pennsylvania to Texas, was working increasingly in Classical and Beaux-Arts styles by this period. Construction was handled by W. T. Lewman & Company. Lewman, of Ouachita Parish, was only 20 years old when construction began.
Photographs show the stately, classical-style brick courthouse set among oaks, with its elaborate dome or cupola rising above a symmetrical façade. The building organized parish functions around a central axis, although its design created some uniquely shaped rooms. A separate jail stood nearby. Surviving photographs from the 1900s–1910s and later local histories underline the landmark quality of the building and grounds.
Ruston was booming from the railroad and parish offices—then tiny by modern standards—benefited from a purpose-built seat of government. Newspaper accounts note the project cost under $30,000, a substantial investment. $30,000 in 1901 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $1,143,000 today.
By the 1940s, the courthouse showed heavy wear and was functionally obsolete for a much larger parish administration. Voters approved bonds in 1947. The beautiful but threadbare domed courthouse was demolished in 1949, and construction of the present building followed.
Construction began in 1950 and the new courthouse opened in 1951. The present structure—modernist in tone—was designed by Neild & Somdal, a Shreveport architectural firm. Neild planned the Harry Truman Presidential Library, and the firm bearing his name designed courthouses, hospitals, cathedrals, and other projects across the land. The new courthouse was built by Southern Builders of Ruston.
For years, a rumor circulated that a fragment of the 1903 building’s cupola remained but efforts to locate it proved futile. A friend of the Lincoln Parish Museum spotted a finial, the spire that topped the courthouse cupola, in a Farmerville second-hand shop. The relic is now on display in the museum, the only remnant of Lincoln’s most beautiful courthouse.
