The Boone County Courthouse was constructed in 1921 on a hillside in a small square above State Street in Madison. A prime
example of the Neo-Classical Revival style popular in the early 20th century, the courthouse is a stately, monumental,
three-story building faced with Indiana limestone with an open-domed belvedere above the central mass. Architect H. Rus Warne
was a student in the Beaux Arts tradition, having studied in Paris and Rome and would have been very familiar with traditional classical architectural
forms. Much like the famous architect Cass Gilbert, who a year after this building was completed, would design the State Capitol in Charleston
in the same style, Warne recognized the power of refined classicism for public architecture.
Courtesy of the West Virginia State Historic Preservation Office.