The Courthouse Restoration Continues
By Cody Berry
The crown jewel of our beloved town square in Benton, the Saline County Courthouse, looks better every day. The new restoration is made possible by using skilled workers, county funds, and grants from the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program. The current Saline County Courthouse is the third courthouse to sit in downtown Benton.
The Courthouse was completed in 1902 by the architectural firm of Charles Thompson and John Odum, who oversaw its construction. Thompson designed it in the Romanesque Revival style, and it cost $31,000. The first courthouse was built in 1839, and the second in 1856.1 The Courthouse was featured in film projects like 1973’s Burt Reynolds film White Lightning.
The current restoration involves replacing the Courthouse’s roof, repairing the building’s wooden trim, gutters and downpours, and the removal of crumbling mortar from its yellow brick walls.2 The Courthouse’s cornerstone is visible on the Main Street side facing the county offices. The Gann Museum has many images of the courthouse in its collections and a time capsule that was placed inside the cornerstone in 1901 during its construction. On one of my walks downtown and back I shot some photos of some men using a crane to work on the Courthouse’s clock tower.
In the Gann Museum’s front room, we have the original town plat from 1836 showing how the downtown area looked when Arkansas had just become a state. One of the things that our patrons like to look for on that map is the Courthouse. We are lucky to have a well-preserved town.
The Gann Museum will soon host an exhibit on Saline County’s first responders. This September 11th is the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks at the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. In honor of that we wanted to do a salute to our local first responders, so, from September 11 to December 18 this year we will be displaying some items on loan from the Benton Police Department, the Benton Fire Department, Pafford EMS, the Saline County Sheriff’s Office, and the Arkansas Fire Museum in Mablevale. We will also be having Museum Day on September 12 from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM.
Citations:
1 Jared Craig, “Saline County Courthouse,” CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas, /https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/saline-county-courthouse-11811/, Date Accessed 7/28/2026; Mike Rogers, “Historic Saline County Courthouse undergoing major restoration,” KARK.com, https://www.kark.com/news/local-news/historic-saline-county-courthouse-undergoing-major-restoration/, Date Accessed 7/28/2026.
2 Mike Rogers, “Historic Saline County Courthouse undergoing major restoration,” KARK.com, https://www.kark.com/news/local-news/historic-saline-county-courthouse-undergoing-major-restoration/, Date Accessed 7/28/2026.