TUOLUMNE COUNTY COURTHOUSE

NPS Number: 07000695

Description:
The Courthouse was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1981 with a boundary for the single building that occupies a city block. The nomination was amended to include the courthouse square (approved 9/19/07). County courthouses are usually associated with a special, designed, public space and Courthouse Square is a natural and functional adjunct to the Tuolumne County Courthouse. Tuolumne County’s first county-owned courthouse was built in the center of the square block with minimal landscaping around the building. The construction of Courthouse Square in 1936 added a designed, open, public space to the east of the 1898 building. Courthouse Square’s location in historic downtown Sonora is only two blocks from the geographical center of the original townsite. With the completion of Veterans Memorial Hall in 1932 and the location of county offices there, the square’s design, with diagonal pathways, linked the courthouse and the hall. The town’s legal community was located in offices primarily east of the courthouse so Courthouse Square was a convenient and shorter way to get to the superior court and such offices as county clerk, assessor, recorder and sheriff. The amendment added 1936 as a period of significance and added the social history and landscape architecture as additional areas of significance.

Registration Date: 9/17/1981

Location:
City: Sonora
County: Tuolumne

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