Michigan's County Courthouses

Menominee County

122 MenOMInee—Some call the cupola atop the Menominee courthouse and the spire of the nearby Holy Spirit church the “gateway to northern Michigan.” the cupola is certainly hard to miss, presiding over the Michigan side of the Menominee River since the building was completed in  for $,. One dollar of that total was the price Ludington co. accepted for the land at the intersection of th avenue and th Street. gordon Randall, the architect, boldly made the cupola out of wood supported by latticework trestles spanning the short dimension of the courtroom on the third floor. a more conservative approach would have been a masonry structure rising directly from the ground-supported foundations . as was common at the time, the wooden cupola was painted beige to make it look like stone. none of the original construction of any part of the building depended on machinery. animals, pulleys, and simple human labor did the job. the exterior walls are masonry-bearing walls, and the floors and roof framing are predominantly wood. Subsequent renovations, however, have added steel beams and concrete slabs in scattered locations. Randall was a student of the greek Revivalist architect asher Benjamin. the style of the building’s architecture is called High Victorian Italianate. Strong characteristics of the style include the widespread use of flat, segmented, and round arch windows,round arches above segmented arches, and a conscious attempt to verticalize classical features. the architecture would no doubt be new to chappee, a French canadian who is the first recorded settler of Menominee. He arrived in  to establish a post for the american Fur company. the name Menominee comes from a native american word for rice, which grows in the marshy lands near the mouth of the Menominee River. But Menominee county might have been called Bleeker county. anson Bangs, an early settler, persuaded the Legislature to create the county in the name of an old family from albany, new york, a family into which he would later marry. Many residents found parts of the act repugnant and convinced e. S. Ingalls, another early settler and a future judge who would write a book on Menominee’s history, to lobby Lansing to organize a county. He went to the January  session of the Legislature, prepared an act, and had Representative James S. Pendall of Marquette present it. the act passed, and Menominee county was born for its  residents. the future creation of Iron and Dickinson counties reduced the territory of Menominee county. In a little over a decade, Menominee’s first and only courthouse stood. connected to it were a jail and a sheriff ’s residence. In , a sixteen-by-twenty-foot entry was added to the original forty-eight-by-sixty-foot structure. a significantly larger brick addition was added in , though it blends well and is difficult to discern from the front end of the building. a few decades later, the jail and sheriff’s building were demolished to make way for new structures. Dissatisfied with how the modern architecture appeared next to the old courthouse, some residents forcefully opposed demolishing the court for a new one. at least one person threatened to chain herself to the building to prevent demolition. efforts then turned toward renovating the building. Menominee County MenOMInee cOunty 123 nearly $ million was spent on the interior and exterior. at the rededication ceremony in September , the cornerstone refused to budge, perhaps communicating that it and the building meant to stay forever. Menominee county is considering plans for expanding its courthouse yet again, by perhaps fanning out new wings for the  structure. the historic status of the courthouse and its place on the Michigan and the national Registers of Historic Places complicate matters, but local officials are hopeful that an appropriate plan will materialize for preserving the beauty of the complex. there is an ugly incident that blemishes the otherwise beautiful Menominee courthouse. What culminated in a lynching on the evening of September , , began many months before. Frank c. and John McDonald were loggers and cousins from nova Scotia working in Menominee. they had a reputation for drunk and disorderly conduct and were confined at the state penitentiary in Jackson for an incident in which Frank beat the county sheriff unconscious . the sheriff returned from the beating and deputized george Kittson, whose family was one of the first to settle the area. the burly -pound Kittson had little trouble apprehending the McDonalds. after their sentences were served, the McDonalds returned with a score to...