Coles County Courthouse
CITY:
Charleston
COUNTY:
Coles
DEDICATED BY:
The Association for the Preservation of Historic Coles County and The Illinois State Historical Society.
DEDICATION DATE:
April 30, 2016 at 5:00:00 AM
The marker is located on the courthouse lawn at 651 Jackson Avenue, Charleston.
On December 25, 1830, the Illinois General Assembly created Coles County. At this time, Charleston became the county seat and was just a hamlet called “Coles Courthouse.” In 1831, a log-cabin courthouse was constructed. About four years later, a two-story four-square courthouse replaced the first. It was in the second courthouse in 1847 that Abraham Lincoln argued one of his most famous cases, the Matson Slave Trial, in which he represented a slave owner. The current Richardsonian Romanesque courthouse, designed by famed Chicago architect Cornelius W. Rapp, was constructed in 1898-1900.