The courthouse

Friday Shoot-Out's assignment this week is to photograph the oldest building in your town. I'm not sure what that is for my town, so I went to the most obvious: the courthouse. Built in 1888, this is the oldest courthouse still used for its original purpose in Oregon.

Appearing on the city logo, it's an iconic image for Corvallis, a town of 50,000.

The 19th century architect described his design as "an Italian villa with a military influence." What was he thinking? There were so few Italians here, and almost no military at the time. Oh well, it is a pretty neat old building.

Here we go up the front steps.

And under the carved stone face that is just over the entrance.

As you step into the building the first thing you notice is how much wood there is.

There were no proceedings on the day I visited, so the benches were all empty.

My favorite room was this small chamber for the circuit court. These days the circuit court meets in a larger room and this one is used for jury deliberations. It also houses some cool old stuff.

I love this typewriter.

And these well-used chairs.

Time to head out. That white postal-style box that you see is a ballot box. Oregon has a mail-in voting system, but if you're a last-minute voter you must drop off your ballot to make the deadline.

 

And that, y'all, is our little courthouse.

For more pics of historic buildings in other parts of the world, go to Friday My Town Shoot-Out.