2023 Spring Newsletter

Sale of the Court House

enthusiastic, generous and venturesome. Everything “went” and everybody went along. The “octopus” and the ‘money power” hadn’t got here yet, and if they had, they would have been made to “set ‘em up” as long as their money lasted and then been locked up in the calaboose or rode out of town on a rail. A few – a very few – of the actors are here yet who were on the scene in those days – most of them have gone. A ma jority of them have crossed the river which is so wide that none can ever return, while others have gone ev erywhere else, from the Klondyke to the golden sands of South Africa, from the wilds of South America to the islands of the seas. The building was started in the spring of 1866 and completed in the fall of that year. It was erected by school district No.21 for a school building, at a cost of $15,000. S. M. Larkin burned the brick and laid them in the wall; the carpenter worked was done by Brock man & Co. It was a large pretentious structure and was really a creditable building for those days, being one of the best school houses in the State. It was oc cupied as a school house until about 1874, when the handsome new building on the hill was competed. November 21st, 1876, it was purchased by Miami –co. for a court house, the price paid being $9,200. The County Commissioners then were P. F. Latimer, S. P. Boon and Wm. McConnor. It has been occupied since as a court house, but within two weeks the county of ficials will move into the stately new structure which proudly overshadows the old, and the cracked and broken walls will be torn down and will mingle with the things of the past.

From the Dungeon: Western Spirit, April 5, 1899 In accordance with the advertisement, the old court house building was sold at public auction at the office of the County Clerk last Monday April 3, at 1:30 o’clock p.m. The County Commissioners were all attendance and the clerk’s office was crowded with spectators, to witness the unusably spectacle of a court house being sold to the highest or any other bidder. Buckeye Bill made the sale, and was more eloquent and persua sive than usual. In his long career as an auctioneer he has sold everything but court houses and this was the first one on his list. The bidding started at $100 and was soon run up to $250, in $25 bids. It began to drag along in $5 bids until $320 was reached, when, at the customary “third and last warning”, the building was sold to Gilbert Moore. The principal bidders were Mr. Moore and T. M. Hobson. This being the first court house Mr. Moore ever owned he has not yet fully de termined what disposition he will make of it, but it is probable that he will use the material in erecting sev eral small houses in town.

Under the terms of the sale, the county reserved the furniture and the doors and casing of the vaults – all the rest is the property of Mr. Moore. The county has twenty days in which to vacate the building and Mr. Moore has three months in which to tear down the building and remove the material. The old court house is a land mark in Paola, and to the older citizens many fond recollections cluster ed about it, and old and dilapidated as it is, many will see it torn down with genuine regret, akin to that felt in attending the funeral of an old friend. It is a part of the early days of Paola, when the town was new – those happy, heartsome. Joyful, careless, frolicksome days, when the very people themselves were new, made up of everybody from everywhere, and all hopeful,

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