Hall County Courthouse

Kimball won the commission in 1901 over a list that included James Tyler and James Craddock of Lincoln, George A. Berlinghof of Beatrice and James McDonnell of South Omaha, and he was paid $5,620.67. The building stands where Grand Island's early plats, laid out parallel to the Union Pacific, meet a later southeastern addition, turned at an angle to both grids so that it claims the whole intersection. Its 1977 National Register nomination points out how it repeats the first courthouse of 1872-73: a tower over the entrance, a dome, a lantern and a clock.

What the plaque says

Hall County Courthouse Designed by Omaha architect Thomas Rogers Kimball (1862-1934), the Hall County Courthouse is an exceptional example of Beaux-Arts classicism and borrows on Germanic design sources. Constructed of brick accented with limestone, the building features a domed interior rotunda with a central skylight. It was completed in 1904 at a cost of $131,793. Originally housing all county offices, the courthouse is now used by the district and county courts. It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The Grand Foundation/Theatre Nebraska State Historical Society, 2010

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer — 3.4 mi
  Edward Durell Stone's island pavilion in Grand Island and an 1890s railroad town of moved buildings, among them the cottage where Henry Fonda was born in 1905.

More markers nearby

• Old Dodge School - World War II POW Branch Camp — steps away
• Pioneer Park — 0.3 mi
• The Lincoln Memorial Highway — 0.3 mi
• The Seedling Mile — 1.0 mi