herr2ck: Belvidere Trip, pt. 3 - Boone County Courthouse and Pettit Memorial Chapel

July 2025.

This post covers two of the landmarks in Belvidere that didn’t fit in my other two posts--the courthouse and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Pettit Memorial Chapel.

Boone County Courthouse

I hate to say it, but Boone County’s courthouse has to be one of the least notable that I’ve covered. It’s a rather bare Italianate design that has been altered over time.

The courthouse’s original appearance. (Courthouse History)

This is only the second courthouse of the county, as it is uncommonly old for a historic courthouse. The first was completed in 1843 and demolished a decade later. The Boone County Courthouse was designed by Chicago architect S. W. Smith in the Italianate style in 1854, and it was completed in 1855 at a cost of $9,000. It appears largely similar today, minus the central dormer and stone portal. Honestly, it looks almost like a school building, a courthouse without some kind of monumental scale or tower.

The building south of the courthouse, which it is connected to today, was built as the county clerk’s office in 1878 in a complimentary Italianate style.

The courthouse with its mid-century addition. (Courthouse History)

In 1958, a Mid-Century Modern addition was completed that connected the clerk’s office to the courthouse. It was designed by William Johannes. Though the architect was correct in making its stature shorter and recessing it between the facades, rendering it secondary between the historic buildings, its expression and materiality still clash with the original courthouse. Beyond this, the addition of a cupola and the alteration of the entry portal are the only two changes that seem to have been made to the exterior, both at an unknown date.

By the time I visited, a large New Classical addition was under construction to replace the 1958 addition. Based on the renderings posted on-site, it will be closer stylistically but will encroach towards the street, overpowering the historic courthouse and clerk’s office and reducing their visibility.

The principal facade today:

Oblique view:

The windows are simple semicircular vaults with brick hood molds that project from the wall plane. The hipped roof is supported by a corbelled cornice, and a small iron fence lines the roof’s peak. The tower may be a more recent addition, but it’s pretty harmonious stylistically aside from its bright white color.

Seems like some openings have been covered up here:

It seemed like the mid-century addition had been gutted, and the new construction would expand outward from it:

The clerk’s office:

Also across the street is this soldiers and sailors’ memorial, built in 1910:

Pettit Memorial Chapel

Historic photo of the chapel. (Frank Lloyd Wright Trust)

Interestingly, this is the only funerary structure Frank Lloyd Wright ever designed. (His mentor Louis Sullivan designed projects such as the Getty Tomb, which the NRHP listing mentions, but this is a chapel rather than a mausoleum.) It was built in honor of Dr. William Pettit, an Iowa physician whose hometown was in Belvidere. He died in 1899, and his widow (also a Belvidere native) commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright by recommendation from her brother, whom Wright had also designed a house for. The original plans featured a small reflecting pool and fountain, which were unbuilt.

The chapel was completed in 1907. It was used for funerals until the 1920s, as the growing popularity of funeral homes made its original function obsolete.

The chapel in disrepair c. 1970s. (NRHP listing)

By the time the NRHP listing was written in 1978, the chapel had been highly altered. Its original wood trim was missing in some places and replaced by concrete in others, the roof’s wood shingles were replaced with asbestos, and the art glass windows were boarded up to prevent vandalism. It was restored between 1977 and 1981 by the Belvidere Women’s Club, and a more extensive restoration occurred in 2003. Today, the chapel is closer to how Wright designed it: