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THE SEA COAST ECHO, TERCENTENNIAL EDITION, THURSDAY, AUGUST 19, 1999-9
Thumbnail history,
Hancock County Courthouse
Hancock County was established in 1812. Five years later, in 1917, *Hie^ first courthouse waslmilt at Center, which later became CaesarTThe county government remained there for 20 years until the courthouse and county seat were moved to __Gjiinesvill£Liii_1837.
The county seat remained at Gainesville for more than 15 years. When the Gainesville courthouse burned m 1853. the" countV~~seat was moved to Shieldsborough.
The wooden courthouse, built in 1866 at Shieldsborough, served for 45 years.
In 1910. W. S. Weston was presidenffof the Board of Supervisors, and S. J. Craft, J. E. Smith, T. J. McArthur and L. C. Bourgeois were “associate members.”
A. J. Carver was sheriff, and E. H. Hoffman clerk.
In July, plans submitted by Keenan & Weiss, New Orleans architects, were approved for building a new courthouse “not to exceed the sums of $25,000.” Jett Bros. Contracting Co. of Alabama won the contracts for construction with a bid of $24,989, which included granite steps at $650.
However, before construction started, the plans were changed to eliminate the fire escapes, at a saving of $60.
Napoleon Caron was low bidder for moving the old court-
house out of the way. His bid, to move the building and vault 76 feet to the east side of the grounds, was $650.
John Heniy, only applicant for the job, was hired as construction superintendent with compensation set at two percent of the cost.
The contract with Jett Brothers was signed Aug. 1, 1910, with contract time eight months.
Actual starting date is uncertain, but first payment under the contract, for $3,120, was made Oct. 4, 1910.
Although the courthouse was paid for from the general county fund, the supervisors on Dec. 6, 1910, borrowed $10,000 from Hancock Bank. They issued five warrants of $2,000 each, payable one each year for five years.
The courthouse was formally accepted by the board on Sept. 2d, 1911 John Henry was employed to move the safe and furniture from the old building into the new, Jett Brothers was paid $50 for placing a marble cornerstone containing the names of the supervisors, and Alzono B. Hayden provided “sundry articles for the toilet room” for $28.
Napoleon Caron bought the old courthouse at auction for $150, and the pickets and posts from the fence around the courthouse grounds were sold to J. E. Saucier for $5.
A fight for light
An 1899 contract to install street lights in Bay St. Louis was not a welcome bit of progress to all its citizens.
Indeed, the strongest opposition came from none other than the district’s U.S. Congressman, who won a court injunction for the removal of poles, wires and lights, arguing that they led to “disfigurement of the view” from his several properties on Beach Boulevard (then called Front Street), “and a considerable element of their value which consists of an open and unobstructed view of the Mississippi Sound.”
The Honorable Eaton J. Bowers, attorney, publisher of the Gulf Coast Progress, Mississippi Democratic presidential elector (who cast his vote for Grover Cleveland), state senator from 1896 to 1898, four-term U.S. Congressman from 1902 until 1910, was a leading citizen of Bay St. Louis who owned four pieces of property on both sides of Front Street, including his home at 402 North Beach Boulevard.
The municipal authorities had contracted with Gulf Coast Ice and Manufacturing Company on Dec. 21,1899. The firm erected poles on and “along the streets of the city, attached wires and other necessary ap-
To complete the transition, the following were purchased for court and jury rooms: Three dozen chairs, four dozen cuspidors, two dozen sheets and a dozen each of single beds, mattresses, pillows and blankets.
(Compiled by Jim Pfeiffer for the Hancock County Board of Supervisors.)
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pliances for lighting the streets with electricity and inaugurated and put in operation an electric light plant, which lighted the streets of the city in conformity with their contract,” according to court documents of the day.
Bowers won an injunction that required Gulf Coast to remove the electrical poles and equipment, charging that they were “erected along the streets abutting his properties without his consent, and to his great injury and annoyance.”
The injunction was later modified to an order to put everything back, but the local court refused to enforce it.
Gulf Coast had no choice but to appeal to the Mississippi Supreme Court.
The court ruled that ‘The authorities are quite uniform that a city or town may light its streets as a means of making them more safe and convenient for public travel.
The right to light the town is presumed to have been acquired and paid for . . . the taking of the land for use as a street includes not only the right of passage, but of securing a convenient and safe passage, to light it, if you please, for that
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