By Danny Crownover
Back around 1949 the local paper was talking about when Etowah County’s new million-dollar courthouse was to be taken over and occupied. It was high hopes that responsible officials would endeavor to see that it was kept clean and decent. They also said it would need the help and cooperation of the public.
True, the new building belonged to the people but that fact today should not give anybody the idea that the older one was once abused, cluttered up with filth and used as a loafing center.
The fact was that the old courthouse on Broad and 4th Streets had wider front steps and an overhead shelter. And for those reasons it was used by loafers and tobacco chewers.
It was to the extent that men and women who had legitimate business at the courthouse had to scrouge through a bunch of sitters and spitters that never had any legitimate or any other kind of business in the old courthouse.
The new building, became an ornament to Gadsden and this county and for the first time was kept clean and presentable at all times.
It was recalled that nine years after the old courthouse was built the local newspaper started a campaign to prevent it from being buried in filth and absolutely ruined.
Said the newspaper in one article: “The present condition of the county courthouse is a disgrace and it is hoped that our county commissioners will have the matter investigated. The building is one of the finest public offices in the state and cost the taxpayers $65,000, on which they are now paying interest, while the building is rotting with tobacco juice and accumulated filth. The sanitary department is too filthy to be used for the purpose for which it was built and is almost sufficient to cause leprosy. It is a nuisance and will endanger the health of the entire vicinity. “
In another item the paper said: “the courthouse has been damaged in the past by being used by anyone that wanted it, as an amusement hall. The plastering has been broken off, the seats broken off, the seats broken down, while the floors reek in filth tobacco spit and cranberries, etc. Its a shame a handsome building like our courthouse should be so abused.”
The reason for the reference to “cranberries,” has been forgotten, but there is no question that the newspaper was right. Then, tobacco chewers squirted tobacco juice on floors, walls and steps like lawn sprinklers, and in the good old days, old timers will tell you, a terrible stench arose from the nine-year-old building that brought protests and even threats to go into the courts to force a cleanup.
Nothing like that happen at the new courthouse. Officials started out with rules and regulations that were effective. The public also had enough pride in a new million-dollar structure to help keep it cleaned and decent.
Contact The Vagabond at dkcrown@bellsouth.net.
