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Offb eat Oregon: Klamath County’s courthouse squabble
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ack in the early years
of the Beaver State, the
location of the county
courthouse was a very big deal.
Th ere are stories of residents
of one town stealing the coun-
ty records from another in the
dark of night in the struggle to
be named County Seat.
But nowhere was the strug-
gle for county supremacy more
heated — and expensive! —
than in Klamath County.
Klamath County, in 1906,
was exploding. Th e U.S. Bureau
of the Interior had fi nished a
dams-and-irrigation project
that had turned thousands of
acres of rugged rangeland into
a lush, productive agrarian
empire just as the railroad had
arrived; sawmills were being
built; and the population of the
town, which stood at 447 in
1900, had quintupled in popu-
lation just fi ve years later.
Th e old county courthouse,
built in 1888, was clearly inad-
equate. Naturally, the county
commissioners were thinking
about replacing it with a new
building — one that would be
appropriately grand and stately
for a community that was in a
fair way to take its place as one
of Oregon’s most important
centers of commerce.
And that’s when one of the
local real-estate developers
made an off er that the county
couldn’t resist: A full fi ve-acre
lot, donated to the city for con-
struction of a county court-
house — in the up-and-coming
subdivision of Hot Springs.
Naturally, the county com-
missioners took them up on
this generous off er, and started
making plans for a $150,000
courthouse in the architectural
style of the Greek Parthenon.
But to the businessmen of
Klamath Falls, this was a disas-
ter. Although Hot Springs isn’t
far from downtown Klamath
Falls — just across Highway
97 from downtown — in 1906
it was some distance away, and
well outside city limits. Instant-
ly suspicions were aroused …
was the developer planning to
get the courthouse built and
the county seat moved there,
and then incorporate Hot
Springs separate from Klamath
Falls?
Just like that, Hot Springs
would be the county seat, and
Klamath Falls would be just an-
other town. Th at simply could
not be allowed to happen.
A special election was held.
But, despite the businessmen’s
Another dental visit?
Turns out, you have better things to do with
your time.
best eff orts, voters — who
cared a lot less about the for-
tunes of downtown plutocrats
than they did about the low-
er tax bill the Hot Springs site
represented — picked the out-
of-town option by a substantial
majority. Th e businessmen got
a court to issue an injunction
against construction; the Or-
egon Supreme Court struck it
down.
By the time all this wran-
gling was fi nished, it was 1912.
Th e businessmen now passed
a kitty, bought a piece of down-
town property, and off ered it to
the county. Th e county passed,
and awarded a contract for
the construction of the Hot
Springs courthouse. Th e busi-
nessmen launched a recall bid
to kick the presiding county
judge, William Worden, out of
offi ce. It failed.
By February 1914, the Hot
Springs courthouse was most-
ly built. Th e die seemed cast.
But then Judge Worden made a
stupid mistake, and everything
changed.
A new amendment to the
state constitution had extended
the terms of service of county
judges from four to six years.
Worden, foolishly assuming
that the change meant he got a
two-year extension of his term,
didn’t submit his paperwork
and wasn’t on the 1914 ballot;
but another local lawyer, Mar-
ion Hanks, was. Hanks was
elected.
Worden clung to the fan-
tasy of his term having been
extended. So now Klamath
County had two county judg-
es — and three courthouses in
various stages of construction.
Th e Oregon Supreme Court
had to step in again to offi cial-
ly remind Worden that he had
been elected for a four-year
term, not a six-. Th e change in
the law applied to future elec-
tions, not past ones. Hanks was
the county judge now.
By this time, the Hot Springs
courthouse was almost done.
It had cost $112,000 — worth
$3.1 million in 2018 curren-
cy — and was about $50,000
away from being ready to open
for business. Th at was a lot of
money for a county with only
10,000 or so residents to cough
up; but Klamath County res-
idents were building for the
future, and really looking for-
ward to having a decent court-
house, and aft er all, it was near-
ly done.
Th en — the trap sprang.
Judge Hanks, it turned out, had
been the businessmen’s agent
all along. Moving as swift ly and
stealthily as possible, he now
offi cially accepted the donated
downtown plot and awarded a
$133,775 contract to J.M. Dou-
gan Construction of Portland
to build a courthouse on it.
Voters were enraged at this
fl agrant waste of their tax mon-
ey. If Hanks had simply seized
$100 ($2,800 in 2018 money)
from every Klamath County
family and lit it on fi re, the re-
sult would have been about the
same.
Another recall eff ort was
launched, and this one was
successful; Hanks was out on
his ear a few months later. But
he’d accomplished what he’d set
out to do: Irrevocably commit-
ted the county to construction
of a courthouse downtown,
whether the voters liked it or
not.
Of course, in the process he’d
wasted 120 grand in taxpayer
money, but you can’t steal an
omelet without breaking any
eggs, right?
He was replaced with judge
Robert Bunnell — who, it soon
became clear, had fallen in
love with the grandeur of the
Parthenon-style Hot Springs
building. Immediately Bun-
nell set to work refocusing the
county on the task of getting
that fi nished so he could move
in.
But the cat was out of the
bag. Dougan had been paid a
$41,548 advance and was al-
ready pushing dirt around on
the downtown site. And he
absolutely refused to stop. De-
spite the county’s increasingly
desperate eff orts, he carried on
with the project as if nothing
were happening.
Why would he do other-
wise? He had a legally bind-
ing, non-cancelable contract to
build it.
Of course, he burned
through the 41 stacks fairly
quickly. Luckily, city boosters
were happy to loan him the
funds to keep going, knowing
he would collect it from the
county with a lawsuit later. Th e
county was stuck: it was going
to have two new courthouses,
whether its citizens liked the
idea of paying for them or not.
Th e county tried selling the
land out from under Dougan.
Th is had the unintended con-
sequence of bringing the whole
sorry spectacle to the attention
of judge F.N. Calkins at the cir-
cuit court in Medford. Calkins
promptly issued an injunction
preventing the sale — and an-
other one stopping all work on
the Hot Springs courthouse.
Dougan fi nished the down-
town courthouse in 1919,
and the county, of course, re-
fused to pay for it. Dougan, of
course, sued; and in 1920 the
Oregon Supreme Court (which
was surely a bit tired of being
dragged into Klamath County’s
drama by this time) declared
Dougan’s courthouse the offi -
cial county courthouse and or-
dered the county to pay its bill.
So Dougan got his money, and,
one assumes, shook the dust of
Klamath Falls from his feet as
he left .
At this point, it was check-
mate. But like a bad chess play-
er who insists on going on to
the bitter end, Judge Bunnell
stubbornly moved forward
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with plans to fi nish the Hot
Springs courthouse.
Th e county approved the
fi nal plans and budgeted
$50,000 to implement them.
Angry taxpayers, who were for
some reason averse to the idea
of lighting another giant pile
of tax money on fi re, got on
the phone to Judge Calkins in
Medford, and out came anoth-
er injunction blocking the plan
to spend any more money on
duplicate courthouse facilities.
Th e county then moved to
sell the brand-new courthouse
and use the proceeds to fi nish
Hot Springs. Calkins — fi nally
overstepping his bounds a bit
— issued yet another injunc-
tion to block that scheme.
Th en the county made an-
other bad mistake. Perhaps
thinking it could move to the
Hot Springs building one de-
partment at a time, the coun-
ty budgeted $15,000 to get the
Hot Springs courthouse jail
ready, to relieve the overcrowd-
ing in the basement of the old
1888 courthouse.
Well, that plan went over
with a dull thud in the Hot
Springs neighborhood. Th e de-
velopment company that had
given the city the land had giv-
en it to be used as a courthouse.
Now it appeared the city was
going to use it for a jailhouse.
Many people liked the idea
of living in a neighborhood
with a courthouse, but nobody
wanted to be next door to the
drunk tank on Saturday night.
So the developer exercised his
option to get the land back if
the courthouse wasn’t built on
it.
Th e county now sued the
developer to prevent this. Nat-
urally, the minute it appeared
before a judge, it was toast — a
deal was a deal; but the county,
game to the last, appealed it all
the way to the state Supreme
Court for a fourth and fi nal
time.
Th e Supreme Court, to no
one’s surprise, said no.
Th at was in September 1923.
Th e struggle had dragged on
for 17 years.
Th e county now fi nally and
grudgingly moved into the
Dougan building downtown,
and the Parthenon courthouse
escheated back to the develop-
er. Naturally, there were not
many possible uses for a half-
built courthouse; so the devel-
oper, in 1927, demolished it to
make room for other buildings.
Historian David Braly reports
it took a whole month to do the
job, and half a ton of dynamite.
Th e downtown courthouse
served Klamath County faith-
fully and well until the twin
earthquakes of 1993, which
split the building in half and
infl icted irreparable structural
damage.
It was demolished and re-
placed with the modern court-
house that’s there today.
(Sources: “Too Many Courthous-
es,” an article by David Braly in Lit-
tle Known Tales from Oregon His-
tory Vol. II, a book edited by Geoff
Hill and published in 1991 by Sun
Publishing of Bend; “25 Years Af-
ter the Big One,” an article by Kurt
Liedtke published in the 20 Sep 2018
issue of the Klamath Falls Herald
and News; and “Klamath County
Library History,” a transcript of a
presentation given by Ann DuPont
at the 2005 Centennial Celebration
at the Klamath County Library Ser-
vice District, klamathlibrary.org)
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