Effingham County Courthouse

About this property

The Effingham County Cultural Center and Museum is a historic building and museum located in Effingham, the county seat of Effingham County, Illinois. Built in 1871, the building was originally the Effingham County Courthouse. The mission of the Effingham County Museum is to preserve our Historic Register structure, to collect artifacts from county history, and to use them both to educate our local and external communities, while immersed in the broader context of American history. Effingham County, Illinois, covers 486 square miles and had a population of 34,668 people in the 2020 census. The city of Effingham Illinois is the county seat. There is one other city, Altamont. In addition, Effingham County has one town (Mason) and seven villages (Beecher City, Dieterich, Edgewood, Montrose, Shumway, Teutopolis, and Watson). There are 47 cemeteries. Each city, town, village and cemetery has a unique history for County Museum historians to investigate and highlight. There are five surrounding contiguous counties (Clay, Cumberland, Fayette, Jasper, and Shelby), with populations ranging from 10,450 (Cumberland and Jasper) to 21,488 people (Fayette). The museum is located on the town square in the center of Effingham. It is owned and maintained by the county. It consists of approximately 1.9 acres bounded by East Washington Street to the north, East Jefferson Street to the south, 3rd Street to the west, and 4th Street to the east. It is set back about 100 feet from the street. Sidewalks extend from the north and south entrances, with the primary entrance located on the south end. East of the building is a parking lot, which has two accessible parking spaces near the side entrance. The lot extends to the accessible side entrance. A pavilion with a flat cement floor was constructed to the northwest of the museum in 2025. It replaced a wood gazebo with steps that had been in the same general area. The courthouse was started in 1870 and completed in 1871 at a cost of roughly $30,000. Its style is known as Second Empire, a style popular in the United States during the latter part of the nineteenth century, coming from France's Second Empire period of the late 18th century. There have been two minor changes to the exterior; in 1913 the bell tower was changed from the Second Empire style to a simple square with a pyramidal roof; and somewhat later the southeast exterior door was changed to permit handicapped access and a small porch roof was added to shelter the door. In 2007, Effingham County constructed a new building, named the Effingham County Government Center, one block west of the 1871 courthouse, at which point the old courthouse was not longer used. Beginning in 2012, the old courthouse began use as a museum.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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