History
The courthouse on Elgin Street building opened in 1986. The courthouse is located at the corner of Elgin Street and Laurier Avenue. Previously the site had been home to Cartier Square, and for many decades was covered by temporary buildings erected during the Second World War. The courthouse is next door to the current Ottawa City Hall, formerly the Ottawa Regional Headquarters building, which was built only a few years later. Previously the courts had been spread throughout the city.
The first courthouse and jail, which was built on Daly Avenue in 1842 had burned beyond repair c. 1869.
The former Carleton County Courthouse designed by architect Robert Surtees, was built in the Italianate style on Daly Avenue in 1870. In 1988, this limestone building was transferred to the City of Ottawa; Arts Court now houses more than 25 arts and heritage organizations. The building's Italianate features include window surrounds, rusticated quoins and tall chimneystacks. The cornerstone includes gold, silver and copper coins and bank tokens of the period. The former Carleton County Courthouse was included amongst other architecturally interesting and historically significant buildings in Doors Open Ottawa, held June 2 and 3, 2012.
Read more about this topic: Ottawa Courthouse
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“I believe that history might be, and ought to be, taught in a new fashion so as to make the meaning of it as a process of evolution intelligible to the young.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Well, for us, in history where goodness is a rare pearl, he who was good almost takes precedence over he who was great.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)