Courthouse dome to look brand new in time for centennial

By ANDREW MCGINN
a.mcginn@beeherald.com

Assistant Greene County engineer and unofficial courthouse historian Don Van Gilder has lost count of the number of times he’s walked out of his office and caught people looking up.

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked out and found people like this,” he explained recently, pulling out his smartphone and aiming it skyward.

He’s even caught people laying on their back.

They’re all trying to capture the beauty of the stained-glass dome high above them in the rotunda of the Greene County courthouse.

But without some help, and soon, visitors to the courthouse could get a closer picture of the nearly century-old stained-glass dome than they bargained for — when it comes crashing down.

A 2014 report prepared by The Stained Glass Store of Des Moines noted that some panels in the 21-foot-diameter dome have “extreme reinforcement bar failure.”

“Complete panel failure is a real possibility,” the report warned.

The county board of supervisors recently approved funding for restoration of the dome in the latest budget. It will be an estimated $175,000 project, according to county engineer Wade Weiss.

It couldn’t have come at a better time — and not just because there’s a risk of someone being crushed by falling stained glass.

Plans are well underway to commemorate the historic courthouse’s 100th anniversary in 2017.

The Courthouse 100 committee, of which Van Gilder is chairman, last week rolled out an official logo for the building’s centennial designed by Krystal Berger, a 2004 graduate of Jefferson-Scranton High School now employed in web production at Meredith Corp.

In a series of events commemorating the centennial of significant milestones, Courthouse 100 will rededicate the building’s cornerstone on May 15.

The plan is to have the central dome restored in time for the centennial’s gala in October 2017.

This time, there will be no more quick fixes, as alluded to in The Stained Glass Store’s 2014 report that noted a “plethora of silicone and white caulk attempts to seal broken glass.”

The dome will be removed and taken off site to be restored, according to Weiss, similar to the 2014 restoration of a smaller stained-glass dome in the courtroom.

That project cost the county $30,440 to remove, restore and reinstall the 14-foot-diameter courtroom dome, with the county deeming it an “emergency fix,” according to Weiss.

As the 2014 report noted of the courtroom dome, “one section is precariously hanging by the edge of one reinforcement bar.”

Each piece of glass also was taken out and cleaned. As a result, the dome has never looked better.

“We had no idea there was clear glass in here,” Van Gilder said.

Originally, both domes served a functional purpose — to flood the interior of the courthouse with natural light.

Years of tobacco smoke had actually turned the glass a shade of brown. All of it was peeled away in the recent restoration.

“It was a pleasant surprise,” Weiss added.

When the courthouse was originally dedicated in October 1917, the local Free Lance newspaper proclaimed that the new building had been “carefully designed and honestly built to withstand the wear of ages and the weathering of centuries.”

That was true. To a point.

Unbeknownst to the artisans of the era, the pure lead used in the stained-glass domes only had a lifespan of 60 to 80 years, at which point it becomes brittle.

“It’s beautiful from down here,” Weiss said.

Up closer, it’s a much different story.

Reinforcement bars have rusted, and soldered joints have failed.

After the occasional storm, small puddles of rain will be discovered on the rotunda floor’s mosaic tile.

The 2014 report noted that gravity has a greater effect on skylight stained-glass panels than on vertical stained-glass windows.

“It’s hanging up there,” Weiss said.

The report called the rebuilding and releading of both domes a “high priority.”

Even though supervisors made room in the county budget for the work, it’s still hoped that grant money could be found to restore the large rotunda dome, according to Weiss.

Once it’s rebuilt and releaded with restoration-quality lead, the signature feature of the courthouse will shine for years to come.

“Don,” Weiss asked, “will you be around for the 200-year anniversary?”