Susan B. Anthony Speaks at Courthouse on September 20, 1877

Susan B. Anthony Speaks at Courthouse on September 20, 1877. . , The Hinsdale County Courthouse is a two-story, front-gabled frame building that was built in Italianate style and completed in June of 1877. It is Colorado's oldest courthouse which continues to function as a courthouse and is a rare surviving example of a frame courthouse building. , Hinsdale County was formed in June 1874, with its first county seat located at San Juan City on the upper Rio Grande River. The county seat was transferred to Lake City in February 1875. County officials utilized rental quarters prior to a March 1877, decision by Hinsdale County Commissioners to construct a courthouse. Plans for a two-story, 30’ x 60’ frame courthouse were prepared by Jonathan Ogden and called for five county offices on the ground floor, vault for the safekeeping of papers and records, and courtroom with two offices on the upper floor. Ogden was one of four Lake City contractors bidding on construction of Hinsdale County Courthouse. His successful bid of $4,450 was the lowest cost of the four proposals received by the county commissioners , other bidders in the courthouse competition were McDonald, $7,273; A.P. Gibson, $4,473; and Overfield and Stocker, $4,985. Construction began in March on two lots donated for the purpose by Lake City businessman J.W. Brockett. Cornerstone laying ceremonies were held April 11, 1877. By mid-May, SILVER WORLD reported the structure was entirely enclosed, floors laid, and lath prepared for the start of plastering. (Note: During plaster repair in the late 1990s, lath forming a curved wall at the entrance of the downstairs stairway was found to consist of willow branches which had been covered with plaster.) Anxious to celebrate completion of the structure, county officials and the local legal fraternity sent out invitations to a courthouse ball on June 8, invitations urging gentlemen to bring “as many ladies as you can induce to be present.” Proceeds from the $1.50 admission ticket were earmarked for the purchase of a courthouse flag. The celebration ball was held on schedule, the SILVER WORLD noting “The lime dust and cold air, from the failure of the windows to arrive in time, somewhat interfered with comfort, but people will enjoy dancing and are not generally dismayed by such annoyances, and hence the dance was kept up until a late hour.” , SILVER WORLD described progress on the new courthouse building, including a June 30, 1877, tour of the building. “The structure is 30 x 60 feet and appropriately faces the Orient where justice was born and matured. A hall runs the entire length of the building, on the left of which as you enter, is the County Treasurer's Office and County Clerk's rooms, these two rooms separated by a vault, which has iron doors and floors, and an entrance from each office… On the right of the hall are two rooms set apart for the grand and petit jurors. Ascending the winding staircase at the entrance to the building, we are brought to the Court Room proper in the second story; this home of equity and legal ground is 35 x 45 feet, and at the west end is the bar, which is surmounted by a circular walnut-finished railing, enclosing sufficient area for the accommodation of the legal fraternity, jury, and Clerk of the District Court's desk... at the end of the Court Room are two rooms, occupied respectively by the Clerk of the District Court and the Sheriff of the County. The exterior is painted white, and surmounted with a staff bearing a silver-colored globe emblematical of the silver world in which it is located…” , As an insight into early Hinsdale County finances, county warrants were traditionally redeemed for as little as 25-cents on the dollar. In consequence, when commissioners issued warrants to pay for Ogden's bid of $4,450 for construction of the courthouse, the translated cost in county warrants was nearly $20,000, an aggregate expense which contributed a county-wide debt of $148,000 , the largest per capita in the United States , by 1893. Charles S. Thomas, later a Colorado Governor, recalled he was present when court convened in the new Hinsdale County Courthouse in 1877. “The entire town was assembled in the courtroom for the occasion,” Thomas wrote in an article published in COLORADO MAGAZINE in July 1924. “The Sheriff was Henry Finley. The judge was not prompt in arriving. He finally appeared, however, and edging his way through the crowd, managed with some difficulty to reach the bench. Taking his seat, he looked over the room for a moment, then removed his cigar from his mouth, blew a large volume of smoke into the air, and said to the sheriff, ‘Turn her loose, Fin’.” , In addition to the day-to-day county business which has taken place in Hinsdale Courthouse for over 135 years, seminal events in the building's history include the 1883 conviction of Alferd Packer and the September, 1877, appearance of suffragette Susan B. Anthony. , Hinsdale Courthouse remained true to its intended purpose in ensuing decades. Office configuration remains essentially unaltered, an exception being the office of County Assessor which now takes ground floor rooms originally intended for grand and petit jurors. Electricity was first installed in the building in May of 1892. The first of several minor alterations occurred in late March 1953, when it was determined the shared vault between the county clerk and treasurer's offices was of insufficient size for the accumulation of important county records. The vault was reconfigured with a single entrance door via the county treasurer's office. A new cinder block vault was constructed on the south side of the building, accessed using the original vault door from the County Clerk's office. The vault projection was later incorporated into a single-story addition with shed roof providing added office space for the county clerk and county treasurer. The south addition covers a portion of the building's ground floor south elevation, leaving corners of the original building unobscured. An interior renovation of the historic courthouse took place in 1956 and in 1959 an exterior staircase was completed near the southwest corner of the building providing alternate access to the upstairs courtroom. , The Hinsdale County Courthouse was selected as the site for a lecture by Susan B. Anthony on a discussion of whether or not to extend the right to vote to women in the Colorado Constitution.

Agreeable to notice already given, Susan B. Anthony addressed the citizens of Lake City Thursday evening, September 20, on the questions of woman's suffrage. The popularity of the speaker attracted a large crowd, the largest without a doubt ever witnessed in Lake City. The Court House had been secured for the occasion and half an hour before the time for which the lecture was announced, every available seat and every inch of standing room in the hall was occupied; as many more were outside unable to gain admittance. The speaker was utterly unable to get through the crowd to the rostrum. It was therefore deemed advisable to hold an outdoor meeting. The announcement to that effect was greeted with applause by the crowd outside and within the hall. The assembly, in which there was a respectable sprinkling of the fairer sex, showing that they are interested in the question more than opponents of the movement would have us believe, stood for two hours in the cool night air and listened with rapt attention to the speaker, who held the multitude with wonderful power. Her address was an able and logical appeal in favor of extending the right of suffrage to women. The hearty and enthusiastic affirmative vote given, when we consider the fact that our miners have no squeamishness about expressing their opinions, was sufficient to convince those attending that the friends of equal suffrage are by no means so hopelessly in the minority in Hinsdale County as the opponents would have us believe, if even they are not in the majority, which is not so uncertain. The speaker is thoroughly conversant with her subject and evidently has studied it in all its bearings as connected with politics. Miss Anthony is an eloquent and forcible speaker and everyone of the large assemblage could distinctly understand and as was evident, thoroughly comprehend her points and able arguments. The speaker made a favorable impression and won many friends for the cause here., At the close of Miss Anthony's address she announced that a meeting would be held at the Court House Friday evening to organize a local association. Being unable to meet the engagement made for her at Ouray by the State Executive Committee, she consented to remain here another day and be present. , , Excerpt from Silver World, Saturday, September 22, 1877, page 3

Susan B. Anthony's address in Lake City centered on the contention “women will be ruled by man as long as man holds the purse strings… man makes the ideal moral code for his wife and a very low one for himself.” Anthony pointed in particular to the inequities of the wage scale and the related talents for which men and women were paid. Years before, as a beginning school teacher in New York state, Anthony recalled she was credited by her school superintendent as having the best school and best taught scholars .... Yet the school authorities persisted in paying female teachers $8 per month while paying less efficient male teachers $24 per month, “a premium of $16 per month on the mere accident of sex.” , The women's suffrage movement in Colorado was still in its infancy, however, at the time of Anthony's visit to Lake City. It would take another decade and a younger generation to carry her proposals through to the Colorado Constitution. Despite her messages being well received in Lake City, of the 1,009 votes cast by male voters in the Hinsdale County general election of 1877, 322 felt that women's suffrage should be approved while a majority of 571 felt otherwise. ,

Of course in an election controlled by baseness and largely run by men of coarse and brutal passion the cause of women's suffrage was over-slaughed, what more could be expected: men who have so little respect for themselves would have none for women's fights. Yet no stronger argument in favor of giving the ballot to women could be had than this same election, the way it was conducted and the scenes about the polls. It needs the restraining influence of women to keep men up to that self-respect that exists or should exist in a community and which cannot be better shown that at the polls, lack of which was never more apparent than on Tuesday. , , Excerpt from the Silver World, Saturday, October 6, 1877

It was not until August 26, 1920, that equal rights for women passed under the 19th Amendment to the Constitution. This was the same amendment with unchanged wording that had been reintroduced in every Congressional session since January 10, 1878. , Restricted donations can be made here or to Hinsdale County Historical Society, PO Box 353, Lake City, CO 81235 for historic preservation and rehabilitation of the Courthouse. , Research and text provided by Grant E. Houston. Graphics courtesy of Hinsdale County Museum.