- City:
- Libby, MT
- Site Type:
- Courthouses (State & Local), Civic Facilities, Military and Public Safety, Penal Facilities
- New Deal Agencies:
- Public Works Administration (PWA), Public Works Funding
- Started:
- 1935
- Completed:
- 1936
- Designer:
- Fred A. Brinkman
- Contractor:
- T. G. Rowland
- Quality of Information:
- Good
- Marked:
- No
- Site Survival:
- Extant
Description
The Lincoln County Courthouse (is) truly a story of two buildings in one as the mid-1930s Art Deco-styled courthouse received a totally new front, in a contemporary style, in the 1970s as the town and county expanded in the wake of the federal spending in constructing Libby Dam. The rectangular blockiness, flat roof, and band of windows set within a symmetrical facade makes the courthouse one of the state’s best designs for a rural public building in the late 20th century.
Sometimes misattributed to the Works Progress Administration (WPA), the project was enabled by Public Works Administration (PWA) funds. The PWA provided a $20,917 grant for construction of the courthouse/jail; the total project cost was $77,070. Construction occurred between 1935 and 1936.
P.W.A. Docket No. Mont. 5862
Source notes
https://montanahistoriclandscape.com/tag/montana-new-deal/
National Archives: Record Group 135: Public Works Administration; Projects Control Division; Entry 52: Indices to Non-Federal Projects; Report No. 5: Status of All Completed Non-Federal Allotted Projects, page 145.
Site originally submitted by Douglass Halvorsen on February 14, 2018.
Additional contributions by Evan Kalish.
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