News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Bids came in as expected for the next stage in restorations of 150-year-old windows at the Historic Clay County Courthouse.
Clay County Courthouse Curator Thomas Watson said the bids will cover $2,400 for each window restoration on the first floor and $3,000 for the double-sized second-floor windows. He said the windows have experienced significant weather damage and leakage from mounted air conditioning units.
“A couple of the windows that we restored, we actually had to take out in pieces and restore it, remake wood, new paint, lots of things on there” Watson. “It’s a pretty tedious process for anyone that tackles it.”
Watson said 14 of the 26 windows in the building have already been completed and this new project will cover the remaining 12. That includes ten upstairs and two large facade windows. He said the project to get all of the windows repaired or replaced has taken some three years already.
“It’s going to be a showpiece for the county when all this is finished,” Watson said.
Watson said Clay County has launched an “Adopt-A-Window” program allowing residents to pay for the repair of the windows. Residents who participate will have a plaque erected next to the window they adopt.
“It’s been a long project,” Watson said. “We have lots of folks, not only folks that live in Celina, but folks all over this county that have a special connection to that old courthouse.”
Watson said while the building is now used as the Clay County Performing Arts Center, it was originally a marriage mill. He said people from surrounding states traveled to Celina to receive a marriage license and be married by a Clay County pastor all in one day. He said this project will help return the historic building to its former prestige.
“The county offices had to move out of it and the actual courtroom moved down to the government complex down on Cordell Hull Drive,” Watson said. “the building was kind of going down in a hurry. You know, it wasn’t being used and it was being used to store things in.”
