Jacksonville Architecture

A year after the 1901 Fire destroyed the old Duval County Courthouse, a new one had been built facing on Market Street between Forsyth and Adams Streets. Designed by architect Rutledge Holmes, the 2 ½-story Neo-Classical Revival style building featured a towering domed cupola. In 1914 the need for increased court space resulted in plans for this newer building, also designed in the Neo-Classical Revival style, as an annex to the 1902 building. The facade of the annex building features four colossal Ionic columns, rusticated quoins, and various other classical motifs including a parapet with cartouches and a balustrade. Newspaper accounts reported that the building was designed to allow seven more stories to be added at a later time. In 1960 Jacksonville lost one of its most distinctive post-Fire buildings when the old 1902 courthouse was demolished for a parking lot. At that time the courthouse annex was converted into a bank, and the windows and the bottom level of its imposing facade were modernized.