"The Chippewa County Courthouse is a government building located on Court Street in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. It is one of the oldest courthouses still in use in Michigan.
Chippewa County was split off from Michilimackinaw County (formed from the entire Upper Peninsula and part of the lower) in 1826. Sault Ste. Marie was chosen as the county seat. The Chippewa County Courthouse was built in 1877 for $20,000, using a design by Detroit architect William Scott and his son John. In 1904, a rear addition costing $25,000, designed by R. C. Sweat, was added to the structure. A second addition was constructed in approximately 1930.
In the 1980, the courthouse was completely renovated. Paint was stripped off woodwork, new doors and windows were installed, and the face of the tower clock was restored.
The Chippewa County Courthouse is a three-story Second Empire built of cut stone. The original courthouse was a rectangular plan; the 1904 addition made the whole structure into a T-plan. The Second Empire architectural style is consistent between the original courthouse and the later additions. The stone walls are two feet (0.61 m) thick, and the building features a contrasting, red-colored stone in beltcourses, quoins, lintels, and entryways. The center entrance is set in a slightly projecting pavilion topped with a pediment. Windows on the first floor have a segmented arch, while second-story windows are elliptically arched. Both the main structure and the clock tower are topped with a mansard roof; the roof was originally covered with slate but is now covered with asphalt shingles. Round windows were added to the mansard roof in 1904.
Inside, original stamped tin ceilings are still installed. Pillars inside the courtroom have ornate cast iron capitals, and the radiators are covered with grillwork.
Sault Ste. Marie (/ˌsuː seɪnt məˈriː/ SOO-seint-ma-REE) is the only city in, and county seat of, Chippewa County in the U.S. state of Michigan. With a population of 14,144 at the 2010 census, it is the second-most populated city in the Upper Peninsula after Marquette. It is the central city of the Sault Ste. Marie, MI Micropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Chippewa County and had a population of 38,520 at the 2010 census.
Sault Ste. Marie was settled as early as 1668, which makes it Michigan’s oldest city and among the oldest cities in the United States. Located at the northeastern edge of the Upper Peninsula, it is separated by the St. Marys River from the much-larger city of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. The two are connected by the Sault Ste. Marie International Bridge, which represents the northern terminus of Interstate 75. This portion of the river also contains the Soo Locks, as well as a swinging railroad bridge. The city is also home to Lake Superior State University.
For centuries Ojibwe (Chippewa) Native Americans had lived in the area, which they referred to as Baawitigong ("at the cascading rapids"), after the rapids of St. Marys River. French colonists renamed the region Saulteaux ("rapids" in French).
In 1668, French missionaries Claude Dablon and Jacques Marquette founded a Jesuit mission at this site. Sault Ste. Marie developed as the fourth-oldest European city in the United States west of the Appalachian Mountains, and the oldest permanent settlement in contemporary Michigan state. On June 4, 1671, Simon-François Daumont de Saint-Lusson, a colonial agent, was dispatched from Quebec to the distant tribes, proposing a congress of Indian nations at the Falls of St. Mary between Lake Huron and Lake Superior. Trader Nicolas Perrot helped attract the principal chiefs, and representatives of 14 Indigenous nations were invited for the elaborate ceremony. The French officials proclaimed France’s appropriation of the immense territory surrounding Lake Superior in the name of King Louis XIV.
In the 18th century, the settlement became an important center of the fur trade, when it was a post for the British-owned North West Company, based in Montreal. The fur trader John Johnston, a Scots-Irish immigrant from Belfast, was considered the first European settler in 1790. He married a high-ranking Ojibwe woman named Ozhaguscodaywayquay, the daughter of a prominent chief, Waubojeeg. She also became known as Susan Johnston. Their marriage was one of many alliances in the northern areas between high-ranking European traders and Ojibwe. The family was prominent among Native Americans, First Nations, and Europeans from both Canada and the United States. They had eight children who learned fluent Ojibwe, English and French. The Johnstons entertained a variety of trappers, explorers, traders, and government officials, especially during the years before the War of 1812 between Britain and the United States.
For more than 140 years, the settlement was a single community under French colonial, and later, British colonial rule. After the War of 1812, a US–UK Joint Boundary Commission finally fixed the border in 1817 between the Michigan Territory of the US and the British Province of Upper Canada to follow the river in this area. Whereas traders had formerly moved freely through the whole area, the United States forbade Canadian traders from operating in the United States, which reduced their trade and disrupted the area’s economy. The American and Canadian communities of Sault Ste. Marie were each incorporated as independent municipalities toward the end of the 19th century.
As a result of the fur trade, the settlement attracted Ojibwe and Ottawa, Métis, and ethnic Europeans of various nationalities. It was a two-tiered society, with fur traders (who had capital) and their families and upper-class Ojibwe in the upper echelon. In the aftermath of the War of 1812, however, the community’s society changed markedly.
The U.S. built Fort Brady near the settlement, introducing new troops and settlers, mostly Anglo-American. The UK and the US settled on a new northern boundary in 1817, dividing the US and Canada along St. Mary’s River. The US prohibited British fur traders from operating in the United States. After completion of the Erie Canal in New York State in 1825 (expanded in 1832), the number of settlers migrating to Ohio and Michigan increased dramatically from New York and New England, bringing with them the Yankee culture of the Northern Tier. Their numbers overwhelmed the cosmopolitan culture of the earlier settlers. They practiced more discrimination against Native Americans and Métis.
The falls proved a choke point for shipping between the Great Lakes. Early ships traveling to and from Lake Superior were portaged around the rapids in a lengthy process (much like moving a house) that could take weeks. Later, only the cargoes were unloaded, hauled around the rapids, and then loaded onto other ships waiting below the rapids. The first American lock, the State Lock, was built in 1855; it was instrumental in improving shipping. The lock has been expanded and improved over the years.
In 1900, Northwestern Leather Company opened a tannery in Sault Ste. Marie. The tannery was founded to process leather for the upper parts of shoes, which was finer than that for soles. After the factory closed in 1958, the property was sold to Filborn Limestone, a subsidiary of Algoma Steel Corporation.
In March 1938 during the Great Depression, Sophia Nolte Pullar bequeathed $70,000 for construction of the Pullar Community Building, which opened in 1939. This building held an indoor ice rink composed of artificial ice, then a revolutionary concept. The ice rink is still owned by the city." – info from Wikipedia.
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