Grant County Courthouse

The fourth Grant County Courthouse was dedicated in July 1964 and added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 18, 2026.

Grant County, which was named after President Ulysses S. Grant, was created on February 4, 1869, and encompassed land that had been taken from Jefferson, Saline, and Hot Spring counties. At the time of its creation, 3,943 people lived in the county. Sheridan was designated as the seat of the new county, and the county’s first courthouse, a two-story frame building, was finished in 1871 at an approximate cost of $3,500. The first courthouse burned in 1877, and the second courthouse was finished in 1880 by contractor T. L. Cole at a cost of $1,680. It was replaced in 1910 by a new brick courthouse built by contractors Monk & Ritchie.

However, by the 1960s, the 1910 courthouse was showing its age, and in December 1962 the Grant County Quorum Court approved plans to build a new courthouse. An article in the May 1, 1963, Arkansas Democrat reported that the 1910 courthouse “has considerable wasted space, is outdated and has been declared unsafe after an inspection last fall.” In March 1963, it was announced that a special election for the bond issue to fund the new courthouse would take place on April 30, 1963. The plan to build the new courthouse, along with the bond issue to fund it, were passed by the county’s voters. Part of the cost of the new courthouse was also covered by a grant from the Accelerated Public Works Act, which was a program that aimed to stimulate economic growth in economically distressed areas by providing grants for public works projects.

Construction of the new building was scheduled to begin on August 6, 1963, and the Ernest Ward Construction Company of Benton (Saline County) was the low bidder for the project with a bid of $246,446. The new building, which was designed in the Colonial Revival style and featured a two-story central section flanked by one-story wings, was designed by the Little Rock (Pulaski County) architecture firm of Ginocchio, Cromwell, Carter and Neyland. The new building used brick that was salvaged from the 1910 building, and it was estimated that it would take 300 days to construct the new courthouse.

Construction was completed in mid-1964, and the new courthouse was dedicated on July 12, 1964. An open house was held before the dedication, with Representative Oren Harris of El Dorado (Union County) as the featured speaker. County Judge Winfred N. Hall dedicated the building.

In addition to reusing the brick from the previous building, the new courthouse also incorporated the three-faced clock from the previous courthouse, and the cornerstones from a 1910 addition were incorporated into the current building’s front columns. A retaining wall that was built as part of the 1910 building still surrounds some of the courthouse square.

Since its completion in 1964, the Grant County Courthouse has remained the center of the county’s government. A small addition to the building around 2014 enlarged the building’s vault while the installation of an elevator in the lobby allowed access to the building’s second-floor courtroom for people with disabilities.

For additional information:
Wilcox, Ralph S. “Grant County Courthouse.” National Register of Historic Places registration form, 2025. On file at the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program, Little Rock, Arkansas. Online at https://www.arkansasheritage.com/arkansas-historic-preservation-program (accessed September 30, 2026).

Ralph S. Wilcox
Arkansas Historic Preservation Program