Phillips County Courthouse marks a century of historic service
At 622 Cherry Street, the courthouse still anchors the 11-member quorum court that sets county budgets, roads and ordinances. Its walls also hold the county’s Elaine Massacre history.
The three-story Classical Revival courthouse at 622 Cherry Street is Phillips County’s public center for budgets, road work and local ordinances. The 11-member quorum court meets there on the second Tuesday night of each month, with justices of the peace elected to two-year terms from districts across the county and the county judge presiding without a vote but with veto power.
Completed in 1915, the courthouse is one of the county’s most recognizable public landmarks. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and stands in the Cherry Street Historic District, a stretch that became Helena’s commercial center after the 1867 flood pushed business away from Water Street. The Arkansas Historic Preservation Program lists it as the best example of Classical Revival architecture in Phillips County.
Helena was incorporated in 1833, and Helena and West Helena merged into one city on Jan. 1, 2006. Today, Helena-West Helena sits on the Mississippi River and had a 2020 Census population of 9,519.
Phillips County built the present courthouse after outgrowing an older one from 1869, which cost more than $44,000. In 1911, county officials first set aside $10,000 for a new courthouse and jail, then later secured a $250,000 congressional appropriation. Frank W. Gibb finished the design in July 1913, L. R. Wright and Company of Dallas built it, and construction ended on June 14, 1915. When the new building opened, the county tore down the old courthouse and turned that site into a public playground.
In October 1919, Phillips County moved 285 inmates, all African American, into the jail at the courthouse during the trials that followed the Elaine Massacre. Prosecutors charged 122 people, also all African American, and County Judge J. M. Jackson presided over the proceedings. The Elaine Twelve were sentenced to death there before later being released after trial errors.
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