This former KC area courthouse held onto Confederate leanings long after the Civil War
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Clay County got into the courthouse business very early. The first one went up in Liberty in 1821.
The second was built in 1857. So by the time this postcard was published, that building had already seen more than 50 years of service—not the least of which were the tumultuous days leading up to and including the Civil War.
The county’s Confederate leanings were no secret. It’s said they even influenced the direction the courthouse faced—south.
More notably, stories abound about how no U.S. flag was flown on the grounds from 1864 until 1912. And then, only because an official from Washington had come to town.
The two-story brick structure’s most distinctive feature was a small dome, topped by a wooden sculpture depicting Justice.
But the upper floor had a grisly history of its own. In 1898 a mob broke into the jail and lynched a 70-year-old white man accused of assaulting a young girl.
Like many postcards, this one appears to have taken “artistic license” by including a clear view of the Clay County Savings Bank, the first bank robbed by Jesse James in the upper right.
On the card’s lower left, the dawn of the automobile age is represented by a Ford Model S (the predecessor to the Model T). Its owner, Sterling Price Boggess, was an early adopter, and actually sold cars from the family hardware store.
The courthouse was razed in 1934, and a third version soon took its place on the Liberty square. The art deco style structure (reminiscent of Kansas City’s City Hall) still houses Clay County administrators, while the jail operates in a separate annex nearby.
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