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HISTORY
The
Osceola County Courthouse is the oldest Courthouse in the State of Florida
that is still being used as a Courthouse. Osceola County was formed
in 1887, from portions of Orange and Brevard Counties. The County Commissioners
had an immediate task of determining a County seat and ordered an election
held on February 6, 1887. Kissimmee City received 421 votes, Runnymeade received
30 votes and Hell or Hades received 1 vote. Once it was determined that
Kissimmee City would be the County Seat, a committee was formed to locate
a piece of land on which to build a Courthouse and Jail. After much
debate and rejection of suggestions, the land on which the Historic Courthouse
Building now stands was purchased from the D. B. Stewart family in 1888 for
$2,205.32.
In August of 1888, Courthouse design plans prepared by F. C. Johnson
were accepted and adopted. A special Referendum election was held on
March 23, 1889, for the purpose of authorizing the sale of bonds for the construction
of the Courthouse and Jail. The results of that election were extremely
close with 193 votes for bonds and 191 votes against bonds. An opinion
from the Attorney General's Office stating that the election had been
conducted "free and open" allowed the County Commissioners to proceed
with the Bond Issue on April 10, 1889. Thirty bonds were issued on July
1, 1889, in units of $1,000 each at 7% interest. These bonds were sold
to Captain George H. Frost from Massachusetts. The final bond payment
on the construction of the Courthouse was paid in July, 1909.
On June 3, 1889, bids to construct the Courthouse and Jail were received and
the bid in the amount of $23,879.00 from the Pierce-Torrey Investment Company
of Orlando was accepted. Actual construction of the building began in July
of 1889. In January, 1890, a portion of the tower collapsed when the
supporting timbers were removed causing a temporary setback in construction
as well as in finances, but the Courthouse was finally completed by May of
that year. On May 6, 1890, at the 1:30 p.m. County Commission meeting,
the Commissioners received the keys and formally accepted the new Courthouse.
The final cost for construction of the Courthouse and Jail came to $25,031.70.
Once the construction was complete, it became apparent due to wandering livestock
that a fence was needed around the Courthouse. "The Sheriff was ordered
to keep all livestock out of the Courthouse yard and to not permit anyone
to hitch to the fence. He was requested to install several hitching
posts on the exterior perimeter of the fence."
As with any facility, maintenance of the new Courthouse was a constant problem
and by 1892, cracks in the plastered walls were being repaired and J. F. Willson
was paid an outrageous sum of $21.00 to repair the tower and roof. In
1901, the County Jail was wired by the city light plant crew and the County
paid it's first electric light bill of $1.64 on April 2, 1901. On March
3, 1902, the County purchased it's first typewriter for $175.00 and in
January, 1905, the Kissimmee Telephone Company installed the first telephone
in the Courthouse. The rent for the telephone equipment was $2.50 per
month and that month's electric bill for the Jail was $2.79. In
February, 1907, the Kissimmee Electric Company was paid $131.16 to wire the
Courthouse and the electric bill rose to $8.65.
The Historic County Courthouse has been "home" to numerous Judges,
eight Clerks of Circuit Court, Probation & Parole, County Commissioners,
the Sheriff and hundreds of employees. All types of cases, from chicken
thievery and the selling of moonshine, to high profile murder cases have been
heard in the Historic Courthouse building. On August 16, 1977, the Osceola
County Courthouse was added to the Historic Register. The Historic Courthouse
is currently being restored to it's original design except we are keeping
the indoor plumbing and electricity due to the fact that surrounding residents
objected to the original water closet (out house) in the Courthouse Yard. Although Osceola County has built a new and larger Courthouse building, the
third floor courtroom in the Historic Courthouse building will still be used
as an active courtroom, allowing Osceola County to continue to claim the honor
of having the oldest Courthouse still in use in the State of Florida .
Information for this short history of the Osceola County Courthouse was gathered
from the book 100 Years of Justice by Robert D. Dietrich. For
more information on the Osceola County Courthouse, this book can be found
in the public library.