GeorgiaThe current Polk County Courthouse in Cedartown was completed in 1951 to designs by architect William J. J. Chase in a stripped Modern Classical style and is a contributing building in the county seat's historic district. Its predecessors had a remarkably fiery history: the county's first courthouse of 1852 was reportedly burned by Union troops during the 1864 Atlanta Campaign, its 1867 replacement burned again in 1887, and the 1889 Richardsonian Romanesque courthouse with its clock tower, designed by William Parkins, was demolished in 1951 to make way for the present structure. Reconstruction-era Polk County also saw documented racial-terror violence, with lynchings recorded in the county as early as 1866. The neighboring former Cedartown City Hall, a WPA-era building by Otis Clay Poundstone, now serves as a courthouse annex, and the mid-century courthouse continues to anchor the Cedartown square.
Polk County Courthouse
The stone-and-brick heart of every Georgia county.
Polk County Courthouse is a courthouse in Cedartown, Polk County. It is one of 55 historic sites cataloged in Polk County on Georgia Roam.
The site sits at 34.0138, -85.2558 near Cedartown. The nearest cataloged historic site is Polk County (historical marker), about under a tenth of a mile away. Others within a short drive include Ivy Ledbetter Lee, Hawkes Children's Library, and Polk County Courthouses.
This record is drawn from the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Use the map below for its exact position and turn-by-turn directions.
The current Polk County Courthouse in Cedartown was completed in 1951 to designs by architect William J. J. Chase in a stripped Modern Classical style and is a contributing building in the county seat's historic district. Its predecessors had a remarkably fiery history: the county's first courthouse of 1852 was reportedly burned by Union troops during the 1864 Atlanta Campaign, its 1867 replacement burned again in 1887, and the 1889 Richardsonian Romanesque courthouse with its clock tower, designed by William Parkins, was demolished in 1951 to make way for the present structure. Reconstruction-era Polk County also saw documented racial-terror violence, with lynchings recorded in the county as early as 1866. The neighboring former Cedartown City Hall, a WPA-era building by Otis Clay Poundstone, now serves as a courthouse annex, and the mid-century courthouse continues to anchor the Cedartown square.
Sources: georgiaencyclopedia.orgvanishinggeorgia.comhmdb.org
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