Wake County Courthouse in Raleigh, North Carolina

Feb 28, 2021 Sun0

Laurie and I like riding our Gold Wing motorcycle. But it is easy to get into a rut and just ride the same roads. So to force ourselves to ride to places we would not normally visit we made a goal to visit and photograph all 100 North Carolina courthouses within 1 year.

As usual, we got a little behind. We started in July 2015 and finished 99 out of 100 by June 2018. The last courthouse was in our home county of Wake and it took us until Feb 2021 to get that final one. But we made it! This blog is about one of those visits.

Many NC courthouses were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. The nomination form has some interesting facts about the various courthouse styles over the years.

County Information

The current courthouse is a modern structure and I could not find much info about past versions. I found the following this link.

The first courts were held at the home of Joel Lane. The first courthouse was a log structure erected in 1771 on Lane's estate. Raleigh became the county seat in 1792 and the third courthouse was a frame structure erected in 1793. The fourth courthouse was a brick structure built in 1837. The fifth courthouse was designed by John B Halcott and built by Thomas H Briggs, Sr. in [sic]882. The sixth courthouse was designed by P Thornton and constructed by Frank B Simpson in 1915. The seventh and present courthouse was constructed in 1968 to 1970.

Our Experience

This was our last courthouse and is our home county. It was the most boring one we visited and there were no monuments. We kept putting it off but finally got out on a beautiful warm Feb day and knocked it out.