Navajo County Courthouse

By 1898 Holbrook needed a courthouse worthy of a county seat, though the town was better known for lacking law than keeping it. Phoenix architects Millard and Grosvenor drew the plans, and Flagstaff contractors raised the brick and native-stone building for $15,300, finishing early in 1899. This was Hashknife country, where the Aztec Land and Cattle Company's riders and range feuds kept the peace scarce. The courthouse outlasted all of it and now holds the county historical museum, its original iron-barred jail still bolted into the back.

What the plaque says

In 1896, the U.S. Congress passed enabling legislation to provide a permanent courthouse at Holbrook. Construction was delayed until Frank A. Zuck donated land in April of 1898. Plans submitted by Phoenix architects D.W. Millard and George G. Grosvenor were accepted by the Board of Supervisors, and on May 5, 1898, the building contract was awarded to M.J. Kennedy and John C. Grim of Flagstaff. The brick and native-stone structure was completed January 9, 1899, at a total cost of $15,300. It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Holbrook — steps away
  A Santa Fe railroad town once too tough for women and churches, now the seat of Navajo County, gateway to the Petrified Forest, and home to the concrete teepees of the Wigwam Motel.
• Petrified Forest National Park — 26 mi
  Two hundred million years turned to stone — and a Route 66 ghost

More markers nearby

• Henry R. Holbrook — 0.2 mi
• Wigwam Village #6 — 0.6 mi
• Little Colorado River Bridge — 0.6 mi
• The Old Fort — 9.9 mi