Shooting the Johnson County Courthouse

Iowa City is the county seat of Johnson County and this is their courthouse. Located a few blocks south of the town center, this impressive building is unfortunately easy to miss. The walls on each side of the entrance have ornate carved stone figures. It's another fine example of the value the community put on their court house.

The county has a nice page about their courthouse. The following came from that page:

The present building - begun in 1899 and completed in 1901 - is Johnson County’s fourth courthouse. The first was a 2 story log cabin built in 1838 in the town of Napoleon, two miles south of Iowa City, off of Sand Road. Napoleon, was located in a flood plain, however, and the second courthouse was built on the hills north of Napoleon in the area that became Iowa City. Completed in 1842, this second wooden courthouse on the southeast corner of Harrison and Clinton Streets (presently a county parking lot leased from the School Board), was known as the "Old Smokehouse" because its chimneys never worked properly. It caught fire and burned to the ground on election night in 1856, when officials were counting votes. The third courthouse was built of brick and finished in 1857. It was declared unsafe in 1899. This two story building stood exactly where the present courthouse stands, and where the old jail stood behind the courthouse, on the northwest corner).