Sherburne County Courthouse, 320 Lowell Avenue, Elk River, Sherburne County, MN

Significance: Constructed in 1877, the Sherburne County Courthouse is typical of numerous such structures built in Minnesota during the great era of courthouse building during the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s. Despite varied exteriors, most courthouses of this period were designed with the county offices on the ground floor and the courtroom or rooms upstairs. The original 1877 portion of the Sherburne County Courthouse is representative of this pattern, having a large courtroom facility on the second floor and extensive office space with multiple vaults on the ground floor for the use of county government officials. This two-story courthouse is of simplified Italianate design that, although modified, retains such Italianate features as the framed window moldings and the heavy cornice on the exterior. Signs of the original exterior remain, including portions of the eastern roof line covered with wooden shingles and an exterior wall section with the original olive green clapboard siding. Some of the original interior fabric is evident, such as pressed metal ceilings and beaded pine wainscoting. The prominent site of the courthouse within the community of Elk River, immediately adjacent to the historic central business district to the south and major highway and railroad routes to the north, continues to suggest its historic role both in the community and in the county. It is further significant as one of only two wood-frame courthouses surviving in the state, others of this type having been replaced in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by more substantial structures of brick, stone, or concrete.
Survey number: HABS MN-138