Area 1 acre (0.40 ha) Architect Frank W. Gibb | Built 1914 (1914) Architectural style Classical Revival | |
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Location 209 Union St., Dardanelle, Arkansas Built by L. R. Wight and Company | ||
The Yell County Courthouse is a courthouse in Dardanelle, Arkansas, United States, one of two county seats of Yell County, built in 1914. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992. The courthouse is the second building to serve the Dardanelle district of Yell County.
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History
Yell County was founded from portions of Scott and Pope counties in 1840. A courthouse was established at Monrovia, but was soon relocated to Danville to be more centrally located. Following the Civil War in 1875, Dardanelle was made a second county seat. Arkansas has ten counties with dual county seats. A commercial building on Front Street between Green and Oak Streets in Dardanelle was made into the district's first courthouse in 1875, and a jail was built close by. The courthouse burned on April 12, 1912, leading the county to buy a new plot of land on Union Street. Yell County contracted architect Frank W. Gibb, who in his lifetime designed 60 courthouses in Arkansas as well as the Arkansas Building at the St. Louis World's Fair and the Buckstaff Bathhouse in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Contractor L.R. Wight and Company of Dallas, Texas built the structure for under $25,000 (equivalent to $598,000 today).
Architecture
Similar to the Dallas County Courthouse in Fordyce built by Gibb in 1911, the building features typical details of the neoclassical style. The symmetric facade with doric columns and white trim all fit with the style. An octagonal roof ornament tops the T-shaped building.
Confederate monument
The Dardanelle Confederate Monument is located near the Yell County Courthouse on Union Street in Dardanelle. Erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) in 1921, the monument was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1996 as part of the Civil War Commemorative Sculpture Multiple Property Submission.
The UDC raised $1760 ($23,632 today) to construct the monument between two banks in downtown Dardanelle. Following the completion of a new bridge over the Arkansas River in 1930, the UDC suggested it be moved so that "all who crossed the bridge would find themselves face to face with the image in marble of the greatest soldier in the world - the Confederate soldier." The monument was moved to the southeast corner of the courthouse grounds, where it has remained ever since. The monument formerly contained plumbing allowing it to operate as a fountain which has since been removed.
An inscription reads: "To the Confederate soldiers of Yell County, in appreciation of their splendid valor and loyalty, this monument is erected".