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Compliance

Harney County Circuit Court

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a part of Compliance, by Ylanne.

Welcome to the Harney County Circuit Court, one of 36 state trial courts in the state court system, the Oregon Judicial Department.

Ylanne holds sovereignty over Harney County Circuit Court, giving them the ability to make limited changes.

248 readers have been here.

Setting

The following text is taken from the book Exploring Oregon’s Historic Courthouses by Kathleen M. Weiderhold, which is freely available on the net at this page.




A sidewalk and a berm along the front of the courthouse distinguish this block from others along the street. The landscaped square provides a cool respite during Burns’ hot summer months, although sprinklers discourage lolling on the grass. Most of the trees provide only shade, but an apricot tree on the southwest corner also bears fruit, which locals pick during the summer.

Elms flank the walkway leading to the front of the building, which faces east like the first courthouse. Except for its square, the veteran’s memorial, and the words on its façade, the building has little to suggest it is a courthouse. A modest budget and a shift in architectural styles from ornate embellishments to nondescript facades were two major factors contributing to the courthouse’s austere exterior.

Decoration is concentrated on the central entry, where concrete fluting flanks a tall twelve-pane window over the two front doors. A plastic owl, which replaced a rotted wooden flagpole, guards against birds perching on the ledge over the entry. Another owl stands above the back door, whimsically added not to discourage birds but to match the one in front. During the spotted owl controversy, pranksters painted spots on the back-door owl; it has since been repainted.

The lobby’s rose-colored terrazzo floor, one of the few interior extravagances, has become the basis of the courthouse’s subsequent color scheme. Benches lining the wall exhibit a similar shade, as does some of the lower half of the lobby walls in order to simulate wainscot. Even the elevator, a recent addition that replaced one of the two stairways to the second floor, sports this warm color on its exterior doors. Using nothing more than a bucket of paint, the maintenance man, Irv Rhinehart, showed that the county cares about the courthouse’s appearance.

Even though shepherding, farming and logging also were ways of life for Harney County citizens, the pioneer society chose a cattleman on a horse for the seal lying in the center of the terrazzo floor. At the head of the seal, a setting sun bisects the date 1870, the year the county was created. Darrell Otley, whose family were ranchers, designed the seal and was awarded a wrist watch for his efforts.

The courthouse construction budget did not allow much interior embellishment, but employees and officials have added their own decorations, which define Harney County and personalize the building. A picture of two cowboys amid grazing cattle, painted by Otley, dominates the far wall. (A rendition of the painting, naturally in a rose tint, is printed at the top of the county’s official stationery.) On a side wall, three paintings donated by county employees and Otley also portray ranching scenes.

Pictures of Harney County’s rangelands are located throughout the courthouse. In the county clerk’s office, one prominently located painting depicts the site where the famed cattle baron, Peter French, was killed. During election nights, interested citizens waiting for the voting results in the clerk’s office share a potluck in the nearby break room. While as many as fifteen to twenty people stand around talking, the clerk posts the results on hand-written poster board lying along the long counter in the clerk’s office. Unlike metropolitan areas where counting can continue throughout the night, courthouse-loitering residents, many with full stomachs from the potluck, generally will know the election outcome by 10:00 p.m.

In the midst of election night socializing, few probably notice that the piers in the clerk’s office have either rounded or squared corners. Those with the squared corners were added after the discovery in 1959 that the aggregate in the reinforced concrete construction was inferior and was causing the seventeen-year-old courthouse to sag. Employees vacated the building for three years while the county court vacillated between tearing it down and repairing it. During that time, the local newspaper even referred to the building and its grounds as “the old courthouse property.”

The courtroom on the second floor is another place where the Harney County identity is strong. In 1995, a local junior high school art class painted a mural on the wall outside the courtroom. This forest scene, depicting the northern part of the county, contrasts with the rangeland paintings on the first floor. However, inside the courtroom, a painting of a cattle roundup towers over the judge’s bench. This picture, like the wildlife scenes on the entry door walls, once hung in the old downtown post office. Another later addition is the elk trophy on the rear wall – the evidence in a case against several hunters who had killed the elk illegally.

The furnishings connect the courtroom to the rest of the courthouse and the community at large. The recorder, witness, prosecution, and defense sit on modern burgundy chairs, a deeper shade of the rose tones found throughout the building. The Edward Hines Lumber Company supplied the clear pine for the spectator benches, and unlike other counties, which selected their benches from a catalog, these appear to be locally made. The Hines company also provided the knotty pine used in the judge’s bench and jury box – a wood found more frequently in vacation cabins than in solemn courtrooms.

Because Harney County did not receive the PWA funds to help build its new courthouse, the building does not feature a lobby with costly marble wainscot or elaborate ornamentation on the exterior like the courthouses in Linn and Clackamas counties, which did received PWA funding. The Harney County courthouse is a plain structure, but through the years its citizens have personalized the building with things that speak of the community. Just like their predecessors at the turn of the century, Harney County citizens are aware that the courthouse represents them.
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Harney County Circuit Court

Welcome to the Harney County Circuit Court, one of 36 state trial courts in the state court system, the Oregon Judicial Department.

Minimap

Harney County Circuit Court is a part of Harney County.