Marshall County Courthouse

Marshalltown's limestone courthouse was completed in eighteen eighty-six, its clock tower rising one hundred and seventy-five feet over the Iowa prairie. Architect John C. Cochrane designed it in the Classical Revival style, and town founder Henry Anson donated the land on the condition that the county spend at least one hundred thousand dollars on the building.

The courthouse stood largely unchanged for well over a century until July nineteenth, twenty eighteen, when a tornado tore off its copper spire. The repair took two years and required building an entirely new dome from scratch. When the restored courthouse reopened in twenty twenty, the clock tower was ticking again, exactly as it had been for the previous one hundred and thirty-four years.