Courthouse centennial lecture moves to Justice Facility because of elevator outage
An elevator outage has moved the Russ Brown Lecture Series into Courtroom 17, but the real draw is the courthouse’s 100th birthday.
The Russ Brown Lecture Series will continue its 100th-anniversary celebration of the Kootenai County Courthouse in a different room, not a different spirit. The sixth presentation is set for Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. in Courtroom 17 on the second floor of the Kootenai County Justice Facility, after the old courthouse elevator was taken out of service.
The move sends the audience just west of the historic courthouse and onto Garden Avenue, where the county’s courtroom map places Courtrooms 15 through 17 inside the Justice Building at 324 W. Garden Avenue, Coeur d'Alene. Courtrooms 1 through 5 remain in the old courthouse at 501 Government Way, a layout that makes the relocation a natural fit rather than a disruption.
That detail matters because the lecture series is not just a calendar item. It was launched by the Kootenai County Board of County Commissioners and the Kootenai County Historic Preservation Commission to mark the courthouse’s completion and dedication in December 1926, giving this year’s programming a fixed centennial frame and a clear civic purpose.
The courthouse anniversary has become a way to revisit how Kootenai County’s public institutions took shape over the last century and how those buildings still anchor civic memory today. The old courthouse remains the symbolic center of that history, while the Justice Facility handles active court functions and even court-assistance services. Putting a public-history talk inside the newer building keeps the lecture series moving while the older building’s elevator is out of service, a practical fix that also underscores how the county’s past and present now operate side by side.
For residents who have followed the series, the relocation is a reminder that the centennial is unfolding across more than one building. The lecture schedule has become part of a larger countywide commemoration, with the courthouse lawn also slated to host a July 3 America250 Community Celebration tied to both the nation’s 250th birthday and the courthouse’s 100th.
The lecture series has turned a legal landmark into a living subject of public conversation, and Tuesday’s switch to Courtroom 17 keeps that conversation on track. Even with the elevator outage, the county is still using its courthouse campus to tell the story of how Kootenai County built its institutions, preserved their memory and continues to use them today.
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