These Walls: Bartlesville's First Court Place

Few buildings encapsulate irony like Bartlesville's First Court Place.

"We had to do some work to make it work, but it does it well," owner Jerry Lesch said of the office building. "The only thing we've really had to do on a major scale was obviously re-roofing it. And I had to put in a new cooling tower last year.""It was one of those grand and glorious courthouses," said Joan Singleton, director of the Bartlesville Area History Museum, the Bartlesville Public Library and the White Rose Cemetery. "That was a time when courthouse buildings were very prestigious. They meant business. Nobody else had buildings like that; well, maybe big hotels, but unless you were very rich, nobody else had buildings that grand. For a community this size, it also was a reflection of the money that was available when it was built."The well-preserved structure now stands as home to Graham Rogers Insurance - marking still another irony, that a structure so closely identified to past crimes should house a company seeking to help protect against such losses.While that promising outlook endured a cold splash of realism less than two months later, once the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand carried most of Europe into the unimaginable Great War, Bartlesville's black crude frontier spirit survived. The courthouse soon witnessed many examples of that vibrant life, lusty tales of sex and murder, robberies, bribery and blackmail, some taking place upon its steps and within its halls.After nearly six decades, that yellow brick and stone building at 501 SE Frank Phillips Blvd. gave up its governmental seat in June 1973. Seeking to preserve the structure's essence, in 1981 a group of Bartlesville citizens succeeded in getting the old courthouse on the National Register of Historic Places. Three years later South Country Builders capped a novel restoration and remodeling, turning the beloved site into commercial offices while retaining the ornamentation and environment of the 1914 era.Like that exotic two-story electric sign atop its roof, the courthouse's grand design boldly proclaimed both ages-old stability and an upstart, oil-fueled exuberance, one of the proudest to be found across the bustling new state of Oklahoma. The Washington County Courthouse's charming abundance also captured the global optimism that a new age of peace and prosperity had dawned across the world.When Inland Construction Co. finished the three-story structure in 1914, what became the Washington County Courthouse forsook the iconic Greek columns of traditional halls of justice for a soaring arch of terra cotta flowers and petals. Built at the then- exorbitant cost of $125,000, the builders incorporated a number of striking features inside and out, from stone awnings and terra cotta leaf to marble staircases, cut-glass windows, plaster ceiling moldings and delicate chandeliers.The Journal Record profiles a significant Oklahoma City or Tulsa building in "These Walls" every Friday and Monday."I'm not quite sure I should tell this here," Singleton said of one such event, although like many such criminal exploits from the Roaring '20s and Depression '30s, she noted the stories live on in newspaper accounts and local memories. Indeed, metal plaques around the structure proclaim several of the more colorful encounters.

The Journal Record profiles a significant Oklahoma City or Tulsa building in "These Walls" every Friday and Monday.