Clay County AlArchives News.....Clay County Courthouse Fire March 1875 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/al/alfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Linda Ayres http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00031.html#0007674 November 9, 2022, 12:01 am Talladega Reporter March 1875 We have just learned that the courthouse of Clay County at Ashland, was burned on Saturday morning, the 18th of March. When this one-story frame building burned, all the county records were destroyed. This is a lamentable loss, because these invaluable records and documents cannot be replaced. The Probate Judge, Circuit Clerk and Register in Chancery all had their offices in the courthouse and all of the records were consumed. The post office, we leaned was also in the courthouse. This is a public calamity and must produce great inconvenience and almost endless trouble. Additional Comments: Two other courthouses, both made of bricks, were subsequently erected. This second building, built from the proceeds of a tax levied in 1876. The Courthouse served the county for 30 years, before being replaced in 1906 with the present Courthouse, which was remodeled some years back. The Birmingham News: March 22, 1906 The contract has been signed for the decorating of the new $40,000 county courthouse at Ashland, Clay County, to Butenshon-Cohen Decorating Company of this city. Dr. R. M. Cunningham, candidate for governor, will officiate at the laying of the corner stone of the new courthouse at Ashland, in Clay County, on August 10th, 1906. September 13, 1906: A petition has been filed, with Gov. Jelks, asking him to call an election in Clay County to remove the courthouse from Ashland to Lineville. This is done in, the face of the fact that a building is now going up at Ashland. Anniston Star Apr 25, 1906: State Senator Walter S. Smith, of Clay County has presented a petition signed by 1,100 voters of Clay to the governor, to order an election for the purpose of changing the county seat of this county from Ashland to Lineville. The county commission has already made an appropriation for the erection of a new courthouse, and as Lineville will be on the new Atlanta, Birmingham and Atlantic railroad, it is urged that it be made the county seat. May 30, 1906: The fight over the courthouse removal continues with unabated interest. Work has already been inaugurated on a new temple at Ashland but stopped while there is uncertainty as to where the decision will finally lie, Lineville making a big fight for it. Lineville contends that it has a petition of more than half the voters as authority for the governor to appoint commissioners to hold an election to decide the location governor will send an examiner to see if the petition is a valid one and if it is will certainly appoint the commission. Lineville is one of the new towns of the state. It is on the line of the Atlanta, Birmingham and Atlantic, now graded much of the way, and a short distance from Pyriton, the terminus of the Eastern of Alabama. It has a fine citizenship and contends that it is the logical place for the building. To be sure Ashland is making its fight and there have been as a result at least one personal difficulty in which eyes have been blacked and faces bruised. From a distance it promises to be one of the warmest contests of the year, putting to blush as an interest producer every race for state office. Our Mountain Home [Talladega] May 02, 1906 Senator Walter S. Smith, of Lineville, last week filed a petition with the Governor asking that an election be ordered allowing the people of Clay County to vote on the question of removing the courthouse from Ashland to Lineville. The petition contained about 1100 names, which Senator Smith said in his opinion was a majority of the qualified electors of the county. He said that as Lineville was to be on the new railroad it would make it the important town of the county and thus the proper location for the courthouse. Messrs. E. L. Whatley and J. W. Jackson, of Ashland, were in town Sunday, returning from Montgomery, where they had been to see the Governor. They said the petition did not contain a majority of the voters of the county, and that many names on it were of people who were not qualified electors. They further stated that the Governor had said that he would send a Commissioner to Clay County to make an examination and report on the petition to whether or not it contained a majority of the voters of the county. September 26, 1906: After a disturbance of several years over the location of the Clay County courthouse the matter has been finally settled and the temple of justice will remain at Ashland. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/al/clay/newspapers/claycoun1928gnw.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/alfiles/ File size: 5.0 Kb