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Photo by Christy L. Smith Above: The first two courthouses in Franklin County’s Northern District of Ozark were either destroyed or damaged by fire. The current building was reconstructed in 1944 incorporating surviving elements of the 1904 builiding, whose second floor burned, and using a “less is more” approach.
Rising from the ashes Franklin County courthouses rebuilt stronger after multiple fires.
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Story by Mark Christ Photos by Holly Hope Arkansas Historic Preservation Program
s with many of the 10 Arkansas counties with dual county seats, Franklin County has a pair of historic county courthouses; though with a 1940s reconstruction of the building in Ozark, Franklin may be able to claim 2 1/2. Franklin County was created from part of Crawford County in 1837, and Ozark on the Arkansas River was designated its seat of government — a situation that would endure until 1885. The first courthouse was a 20foot square, one-story wood-frame building constructed on the northwest corner of the town square for $400 COUNTY LINES, SPRING 2018
during the 1839-1840 court term. By 1851 the prosperous county had outgrown the structure and a new two-story brick courthouse was built in the middle of the square with Kendall Webb’s low bid of $2,450. Unfortunately, this structure suffered the fate of many other county courthouses around the state and was burned down during the Civil War. In 1869, the county accepted a $9,700 bid to construct a new courthouse atop the ashes of the old one, though by the time the sturdy two-story brick building was completed that cost had ballooned to $13,000. Thirty-five years later, the county decided to trade in the plain, square building for See
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