The Haralson County Courthouse at Buchanan: the Grand Old Courthouses of Georgia
| Publication year | 2022 |
| Pages | 0036 |
| Citation | Vol. 28 No. 3 Pg. 0036 |
GBJ | Feature
BY WILBER W. CALDWELL
The 1892 Haralson County Courthouse at Buchanan is typical of Bruce and Morgan's elegant and strangely personal Queen Anne courthouse style. The Atlanta architects often employed towers with bell roofs, ornate terra cotta decorations, delicate classically inspired fenestration and other details to create designs that were highly Picturesque in silhouette and lavishly embellished with all manner of eclectic decoration. Just as the story of this impressive courthouse typifies Alexander Bruce's efforts, it is also typical of the struggle of many tiny Georgia hamlets to retain the county seat in the face of the fickle forces of New South aspiration.
When Haralson County was created from Carroll and Polk Counties in 1856, the vast rocky expanses of this hilly section of western Georgia contained no towns large enough to claim the title of county seat. In 1857, a central location was selected, and the county town was laid out. First called Pierceville, after President Franklin Pierce, the village soon discovered that the name was already in use in Georgia. One U.S. president must have appeared as good as another to the county's founders, for the name was quickly changed to Buchanan for President James Buchanan, who had
The Haralson County Courthouse at Buchanan, built in 1892, Bruce and Morgan, architects.
PHOTO BY WILBER W. CALDWELL
just been elected to replace the hapless Pierce. Both presidents were Democrats with an ear to the South's peculiar cause, but, in truth, both proved ineffective leaders in the hour of the nation's greatest need. As the west Georgia town that bore his name constructed its first courthouse James Buchanan stood helplessly by while Kansas burned, the Dred Scott decision affirmed slavery and the union plummeted toward war.
The frame courthouse completed at Buchanan in 1857 presided over a place so remote that the initial business of Haralson County's first inferior court was to mandate the construction of roads from Buchanan to Villa Rica, Carrollton and Cedartown. The old frame building, erected back in 1857, would stand for more than 30 years. In 1889, only two years after The Chattanooga, Rome and Columbus Railroad finally arrived in Buchanan, the old building was badly damaged by fire. By 1890, agitation for a new courthouse...
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