GeorgiaThe Rabun County Courthouse in Clayton is a modern building constructed in the late 1960s, a two-story structure of gray brick, stone, and concrete set on the edge of a ravine in the center of town, housing the Superior, Juvenile, Probate, and Magistrate courts of Georgia's mountainous northeastern corner. It stands on the site of far older courthouses, and the hill it occupies was once the setting for the county's legal executions. The Rabun County Historical Society has documented public hangings carried out on the courthouse slope, including one recounted in a 1916 Clayton Tribune article in which a condemned man named Brown was hooded and hanged before a crowd on the hillside below the courthouse. Such hangings ended when Georgia replaced execution by hanging with electrocution at the state prison in 1924. Later renovations added a second floor, a cupola, and a new entrance, giving the utilitarian 1960s building a more traditional courthouse profile.
Rabun County Courthouse
The stone-and-brick heart of every Georgia county.
Rabun County Courthouse is a courthouse in Clayton, Rabun County. It is one of 68 historic sites cataloged in Rabun County on Georgia Roam.
The site sits at 34.8790, -83.4030 near Clayton. The nearest cataloged historic site is Rabun County (historical marker), about under a tenth of a mile away. Others within a short drive include Clayton Baptist Church Cemetery, Pickett Cemetery, and Roane Cemetery.
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 Rabun County Courthouse in Clayton is a modern building constructed in the late 1960s, a two-story structure of gray brick, stone, and concrete set on the edge of a ravine in the center of town, housing the Superior, Juvenile, Probate, and Magistrate courts of Georgia's mountainous northeastern corner. It stands on the site of far older courthouses, and the hill it occupies was once the setting for the county's legal executions. The Rabun County Historical Society has documented public hangings carried out on the courthouse slope, including one recounted in a 1916 Clayton Tribune article in which a condemned man named Brown was hooded and hanged before a crowd on the hillside below the courthouse. Such hangings ended when Georgia replaced execution by hanging with electrocution at the state prison in 1924. Later renovations added a second floor, a cupola, and a new entrance, giving the utilitarian 1960s building a more traditional courthouse profile.
Sources: rabunhistory.orggeorgiaencyclopedia.orgcourthouses.co
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