Allendale County Courthouse
National Register Listing
Street Address:
292 Barnwell Highway, Allendale, SC (Allendale County)
NRHP Nomination Form
Record Number:
S10817703013
Description and Narrative:
The Allendale County Courthouse, constructed in 1921-1922, is significant as the county's first and only courthouse. Allendale County, the last county established in South Carolina, emerged in 1919 from parts of Barnwell and Hampton counties, jurisdictions thought at the time to be too large to govern effectively. Plans for a courthouse actually began with the legislative act establishing Allendale County; therefore, this courthouse is not merely the only extant building in the county tied closely to the county's founding but clearly the most significant public building in the county. It is also important as an example of the public design work in South Carolina of G. Lloyd Preacher, noted Augusta and Atlanta architect and native son of Allendale County. The A.J. Krebs and Company, general contractors of Atlanta, was engaged to carry out the building's construction. The courthouse is a two-story yellow brick and limestone-accented building whose central block with pedestaled pediment is dominated by a monumental, unengaged, flat-roofed Neoclassical Revival portico. The portico features four massive limestone columns and responding pilasters of the Tuscan order, a classical entablature, and a brick and limestone parapet. Immediately to the rear [northeast] and connected to the historic courthouse by a narrow two-story hyphen is a large office and courtroom building that was completed and occupied in 2004. The new building's construction was part of a larger project that included the overall reconstruction of the historic courthouse's interior and rehabilitation of its exterior, following a devastating arson fire that destroyed much the building's interior on the morning of May 18, 1998. The interior's restoration, in plan and detail, is based upon the 1921 architectural drawings by G. Lloyd Preacher and Company. Listed in the National Register August 1, 2007.
Period of Significance:
1922 – 1956;1922
Level of Significance:
Local
Area of Significance:
Politics/Government
National Register Determination:
listed
Date of Certification:
August 1 2007
