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41-703: The Pioneer Courthouse is a federal courthouse in Portland, Oregon , United States . Built beginning in 1869, the structure is the oldest federal building in the Pacific Northwest , and the second-oldest west of the Mississippi River . Along with Pioneer Courthouse Square , it serves as the center of downtown Portland . It is also known as the Pioneer Post Office because a popular downtown Portland post office was, until 2005, located inside. The courthouse

82-526: A Superior Court and Sheriff (as an officer of the court ), both located in a designated "shire town". Bennington County, Vermont has two shire towns; the court for "North Shire" is in the shire town Manchester , and the Sheriff for the county and court for "South Shire" are in the shire town Bennington. In 2024, Connecticut , which had not defined their counties for anything but statistical, historical and weather warning purposes since 1960, along with ending

123-582: A United States post office as well as court facilities for the District of New Jersey . Some branches of U.S. federal government courts are housed in rented office space in buildings housing commercial tenants; for instance, the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware is located in an office building in Wilmington, Delaware , across the street from the main courthouse of

164-465: A completely different continent. These characteristics include the materiality in terms of large stone construction, the repetitive rhythmic use of windows containing various sized arches and barrel vaults directing attention towards them, decorated spandrels (wall section connecting arches) and the inclusion of gabled walls (pointed sections). Old City Hall has been designated a National Historical Site since 1989. County seat A county seat

205-410: A county seat may be an independent city surrounded by, but not part of, the county of which it is the administrative center; for example, Fairfax City is both the county seat of Fairfax County, Virginia and completely surrounded by Fairfax County, but the city is politically independent of the county. When the county seat is in the independent city, government offices such as the courthouse may be in

246-484: A federal facility. On March 20, 1973, the building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places . It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1977. In March 1933, city engineer Olaf Laurgaard proposed tearing down the building to open a parking garage. John C. Ainsworth asked Oregon representative Charles Martin and Charles L. McNary to see if President Franklin D. Roosevelt would consider giving

287-584: A federally owned building that houses courtrooms, chambers and clerk's offices. Many federal judicial districts are further split into divisions, which may also have their own courthouses. However, sometimes divisional court facilities are located in buildings that also house other agencies or offices of the United States government; for instance, the Mitchell H. Cohen United States Courthouse in Camden, New Jersey houses

328-586: Is an administrative center, seat of government , or capital city of a county or civil parish . The term is in use in five countries: Canada , China , Hungary , Romania , and the United States . An equivalent term, shire town , is used in the U.S. state of Vermont and in several other English-speaking jurisdictions, such as Venezuela . In Canada , the provinces of Ontario , Quebec , New Brunswick , Prince Edward Island , and Nova Scotia have counties as an administrative division of government below

369-685: Is equivalent to the city hall as the symbol of the municipium in European free cities . Courthouses are often shown in American cinema (i.e. " Peyton Place ", " Back to the Future ", and " My Cousin Vinny "). They range from small-town rural buildings with a few rooms to huge metropolitan courthouses that occupy large plots of land. The style of American architecture used varies, with common styles including federal , Greek Revival , neoclassicist , and modern . Due to

410-409: Is known as the seat of its county. Generally, the county legislature, county courthouse, sheriff's department headquarters, hall of records, jail and correctional facility are located in the county seat, though some functions (such as highway maintenance, which usually requires a large garage for vehicles, along with asphalt and salt storage facilities) may also be located or conducted in other parts of

451-696: Is one of four primary locations where the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit hears oral arguments. It also houses the chambers of the Portland-based judges on the Ninth Circuit. Built in stages between 1869 and 1903, it was first occupied in 1875 by judge Matthew Deady . At that time the building was named the United States Building. Pioneer Courthouse has survived several attempts to demolish it, while continuing to function as

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492-573: The Oklahoma City bombing , the federal government proceeded to heavily fortify all large federal buildings, including many urban courthouses. Some courthouses in areas with high levels of violent crime have redundant layers of security. For example, when the Supreme Court of California hears oral argument in San Francisco or Los Angeles, visitors must pass through one security checkpoint to enter

533-703: The Los Angeles Superior Court added such checkpoints to all entrances to its main courthouse in Downtown Los Angeles after a woman was shot and killed by her ex-husband in open court in September 1995. The Supreme Court of California ruled in 2002 that Los Angeles County (which at the time was responsible for maintaining the courthouses) was not liable to her three children under the California Government Tort Claims Act. After

574-784: The Pioneer Courthouse and build an office building for the Historical Society, the Boy Scouts , a theater, and a museum. A. E. Doyle , his architectural firm, the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects , the Colonial Dames, and The Oregon Journal sharply opposed destroying the building. In 2003, plans for renovating the courthouse sparked an unusual conflict between Portland Democratic congressmen Earl Blumenauer and David Wu . Wu, whose district contains

615-879: The United States, followed by Towson , the county seat of Baltimore County, Maryland . Likewise, some county seats may not be incorporated in their own right, but are located within incorporated municipalities. For example, Cape May Court House, New Jersey , though unincorporated, is a section of Middle Township , an incorporated municipality. In some states, often those that were among the original Thirteen Colonies , county seats include or formerly included "Court House" as part of their name, such as Spotsylvania Courthouse, Virginia . Most counties have only one county seat. However, some counties in Alabama , Arkansas , Georgia , Iowa , Kentucky , Massachusetts , Mississippi , Missouri , New Hampshire , New York , and Vermont have two or more county seats, usually located on opposite sides of

656-627: The building housing the courthouse may be named in some way or its function divided as between a judicial building and administrative office building. Philadelphia City Hall , for instance, serves as the seat of the legislative and executive functions of the consolidated city and county of Philadelphia , but most of its floor space is devoted to the Civil Division of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas . The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania shares space with three local governments and with

697-643: The building, and another to enter the courtroom. In Canada , each municipality constructs its own courthouse, or several in the case of large cities. In smaller communities the court is in the same building as the city hall and other municipal offices. In the past many courthouses also included the local prison. One well-known court house in Canada is the Romanesque Revival (Neo-Romanesque) Old City Hall in Toronto , Ontario . Designed by E.J. Lennox , Old City Hall

738-517: The counties after his unification, there were about 1,000. Under the Eastern Han dynasty , the number of counties increased to above 1,000. About 1400 existed when the Sui dynasty abolished the commandery level (郡 jùn), which was the level just above counties, and demoted some commanderies to counties. In Imperial China, the county was a significant administrative unit because it marked the lowest level of

779-418: The county, especially if it is geographically large. A county seat is usually an incorporated municipality . The exceptions include the county seats of counties that have no incorporated municipalities within their borders, such as Arlington County, Virginia , where the county seat is the entire county. Ellicott City , the county seat of Howard County, Maryland , is the largest unincorporated county seat in

820-420: The county. Examples include Harrison County, Mississippi , which has both Biloxi and Gulfport as county seats, and Hinds County, Mississippi , which has both Raymond and the state capital of Jackson . The practice of multiple county seat towns dates from the days when travel was difficult. There have been few efforts to eliminate the two-seat arrangement, since a county seat is a source of civic pride for

861-427: The courthouse also contains the main administrative office for the county government, or when a new courthouse is constructed, the former one will often be used for other local government offices. Either way, a typical courthouse will have one or more courtrooms and a court clerk's office with a filing window where litigants may submit documents for filing with the court. Each United States district court also has

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902-466: The courthouse, supported a plan that included removing the post office from the courthouse, and adding five parking spaces in its basement. Wu's plan was ultimately adopted, and the $ 23.4 million renovation of the building was completed in December 2005. The work included the addition of base isolators to protect the historic structure from earthquakes , the secure judges' parking area under the building, and

943-515: The district court. The United States District Court for the Eastern District of California has a courthouse in Yosemite to hear misdemeanors and petty crimes for Yosemite National Park . Most of the United States courts of appeals are based in the main courthouses of the federal district court in the city in which they are seated. The courthouse is part of the iconography of American life and

984-523: The equivalent term is a palace of justice (French: palais de justice, Italian: palazzo di giustizia, Portuguese: palácio da justiça). In the United States , most counties maintain trial courts in a county-based courthouse, which also house other county government offices. The courthouse may be a part of a wider county government building or complex. The courthouse is usually located in the county seat , although large metropolitan counties may have satellite or annex offices for their courts. In some cases,

1025-440: The footprint of the building. Secure entrance vestibules provide court staff the opportunity to screen visitors to the building for contraband, such as weapons and narcotics, as well as for unauthorized access. Mid size to larger courthouses often have separate entrances to the building for the public, prisoners, judges, and witnesses. These entrances may be monitored remotely from a central security station. In lower risk settings,

1066-424: The imperial bureaucratic structure; in other words, it was the lowest level that the government reached. Government below the county level was often undertaken through informal non-bureaucratic means, varying between dynasties. The head of a county was the magistrate , who oversaw both the day-to-day operations of the county as well as civil and criminal cases. The current number of counties mostly resembled that of

1107-572: The increase of Han Chinese population in Taiwan, the number of counties also grew by time. By the end of Qing era, there were 11 counties in Taiwan. Protestant missionaries in China first romanized the term as hien . When Taiwan became a Japanese colony in 1895, the hierarchy of divisions also incorporated into the Japanese system in the period when Taiwan was under Japanese rule. By September 1945, Taiwan

1148-611: The independent city under an agreement, such as in Albemarle , or may in be enclaves of the county surrounded by the independent city, such as in Fairfax . Others, such as Prince William , have the courthouse in an enclave surrounded by the independent city and have the county government, the Board of Supervisors, in a different part of the county, far from the county seat. The following counties have their county seat in an independent city: Bedford

1189-732: The later years of the Qing dynasty . Changes of location and names of counties in Chinese history have been a major field of research in Chinese historical geography, especially from the 1960s to the 1980s. There are 1,355 counties in Mainland China out of a total of 2,851 county-level divisions. In Taiwan , the first counties were first established in 1661 by the Kingdom of Tungning . The later ruler Qing empire inherited this type of administrative divisions. With

1230-1052: The legislative and executive branches of the state government of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia City Hall in Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania State Capitol in Harrisburg , which it shares with the Pennsylvania General Assembly and the Governor of Pennsylvania , and the Pittsburgh City-County Building in Pittsburgh , which it shares with the governments of the City of Pittsburgh and of Allegheny County . Many judges also officiate at civil marriage ceremonies in their courthouse chambers. In some places,

1271-465: The modalities involved in the hearing of complex cases, including civil, criminal, and family law disputes, the architecture of court buildings can present significant security challenges to enforcement officers. Architects typically use two main tools to mitigate security risks within the adjudicative space depending upon local needs, such as the proliferation of weapons: secure entrance vestibules and separation of circulation pathways and adjacencies within

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1312-419: The only place the systems of circulation, including hallways, stairwells, and elevators overlap is within the monitored setting of the courtroom. This reduces the risk of unauthorized access to court materials by the public, such as court clerk record vaults, as well as the risk of in-custody defendants intimidating witnesses or jurors while being escorted through the public areas of the courthouse. For example,

1353-752: The provincial level, and thus county seats. In the provinces of Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia the term "shire town" is used in place of county seat. County seats in China are the administrative centers of the counties in the People's Republic of China . Xian have existed since the Warring States period and were set up nationwide by the Qin dynasty . The number of counties in China proper gradually increased from dynasty to dynasty. As Qin Shi Huang reorganized

1394-786: The renovation of the lobby where the post office had been. The trials of the Oregon land fraud scandal were held in the courthouse, beginning in 1904. These trials were documented at length in Stephen A. Douglas Puter 's book Looters of the Public Domain . Courthouse The term is commonly used in the English-speaking countries of North America. In most other English-speaking countries, buildings which house courts of law are simply called "courts" or "court buildings". In most of continental Europe and former non-English-speaking European colonies,

1435-654: The security screening may be more perfunctory and serve as an information desk to direct visitors to the various agencies and offices housed within the court building. Once users of the court have entered the building through security screenings and access control checkpoints, the circulation systems of passageways through the building provide discrete pathways by which the public, court staff, and in-custody defendants access to courtrooms and other court services, such as attorneys, pretrial and probation services, and clerks' offices. The circulation pathways and adjacency diagrams designed for newer and larger courthouses often ensure that

1476-764: The state's area, has no borough government or borough seat. One borough, the Lake and Peninsula Borough , has its borough seat located in another borough, namely King Salmon in Bristol Bay Borough . In Louisiana , which is divided into parishes rather than counties, county seats are referred to as "parish seats". In New England , counties have served mainly as dividing lines for the states' judicial systems. Rhode Island has no county level of government and thus no county seats, and Massachusetts has dissolved many but not all of its county governments. In Vermont , Massachusetts , and Maine county government consists only of

1517-524: The structure and property to the city of Portland. Portland would then renovate the structure for the Oregon Historical Society and The Colonial Dames of America to use. Martin immediately replied that the timing was bad since Oregon was asking for funding of the Bonneville Dam , and it was likely illegal to donate a post office to a city. Ainsworth quickly came up with a new scheme: demolish

1558-416: The towns involved, along with providing employment opportunities. There are 33 counties with multiple county seats in 11 states: Alaska is divided into boroughs rather than counties; the county seat in these case is referred to as the "borough seat"; this includes six consolidated city-borough governments (one of which is styled as a "municipality"). The Unorganized Borough, Alaska , which covers 49% of

1599-607: The use of county seats in particular, will fully transition with the permission of the United States Census Bureau to a system of councils of government for the purposes of boundary definition and as county equivalents. Two counties in South Dakota , Oglala Lakota and Todd , have their county seat and government services centered in a neighboring county. Their county-level services are provided by Fall River County and Tripp County , respectively. In Virginia ,

1640-633: Was completed in 1899 and has been functioning as a municipal building ever since. It was originally constructed to facilitate Toronto's City Council, legal and municipal offices and the city's courts however following the construction of the fourth city hall (adjacent to the third, on Queen Street) the building's purpose was limited to being solely a courthouse for the Ontario Court of Justice . The building can be described as Romanesque Revival due to multiple characteristics it shares with Romanesque architecture, despite being constructed seven centuries later in

1681-568: Was divided into 8 prefectures ( 州 and 廳 ), which remained after the Republic of China took over. There are 13 county seats in Taiwan, which function as county-administered cities , urban townships , or rural townships . In most of the United States , a county is an administrative or political subdivision of a state that consists of a geographic area with specific boundaries and usually some level of governmental authority. The city, town, or populated place that houses county government

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