U.S. Court of Appeals-Fifth Circuit

About this property

The John Minor Wisdom United States Court of Appeals Building is a historic courthouse for the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit located at 600 Camp Street in New Orleans, Louisiana. In 2015 it was designated a National Historic Landmark for its extensive role in adjudicating issues of the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. John Minor Wisdom, for whom it is now named, was a judge on the Fifth Circuit during that period. The John Minor Wisdom U.S. Court of Appeals Building originally housed a U.S. post office and both federal district and appeals courts. In 1908, the New York architectural firm Hale and Rogers won a design competition for the building, and U.S. Treasury Department officials approved their plans in 1909. Workers broke ground later that year on the site, which encompasses the block bounded by Lafayette, Camp, Magazine, and Capdeville streets overlooking Lafayette Square. Construction of the elaborate building took many years; the date 1912 is incised on the frieze on the Lafayette Street side, but the interior was not finished until 1915, and employees were only able to move into their offices the next year. The post office occupied the entire first floor, while the federal district court and court of appeals were on the second. Executive branch agencies were on the third level. In 1961, needing additional space, the post office moved to a new facility. Two years later, the courts also vacated. The building was unoccupied until 1965, when it served as a public high school for three years after Hurricane Betsy destroyed McDonough 35 High School. Between 1971 and 1972, the federal building underwent an extensive restoration. Upon completion, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals returned to the building as its only tenant. The building was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1974 and has since been featured in several films and television shows. In 1994, the building was renamed to honor John Minor Wisdom, a respected judge who served on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals from 1957 until his death in 1999. Wisdom strongly promoted civil rights and issued landmark decisions that supported school desegregation and voter rights. In 1993, President Bill Clinton awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. During Hurricane Katrina in 2005, wind and rain damaged the building, but there was no flooding. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals judges and staff briefly relocated to other cities and towns in the region because of damage and power outages, but returned to the building in December 2005 when the issues were resolved.

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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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