Located in: Elbow Lake, Minnesota

The Grant County Courthouse in Elbow Lake, Minnesota, is the seat of Grant County, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

After a lengthy political and legal battle to secure the county seat for their developing community in the late 19th Century, the citizens of Elbow Lake were prepared to make their new county courthouse a showpiece of community pride. In 1905, so they commissioned Minneapolis architects Bell and Detweiler to create a Beaux Arts style structure, and then graced its interiors with a series of handsome murals depicting county scenes and symbolic figures in key rooms and the central dome, all executed by noted regional artist Odin J. Oyen. Over the years art gave way to modernizations and many murals were lost, faded, and forgotten.

When Grant County commissioners undertook a $4.5 million general rehabilitation of the courthouse in 2011-12, the removal of suspended ceilings revealed the murals once again, including a 25’x30’ mural depicting “Justice and Power of Law” crowning the main courtroom. The discoveries motivated the County to launch an effort to restore all of Oyen’s work in the courthouse.

Two different decorative arts analyses were commissioned to recommend appropriate conservation and restoration treatments. In 2013, they were awarded a Capital Campaign Challenge grant of $90,000 by the Jeffris Family Foundation to initiate the conservation and restoration effort. That challenge was met in 2014 with a grant from the Minnesota Legacy Fund.

Restoration meant the citizens of this rural county could again take full pride in their iconic courthouse – arts and all.

The photo gallery below shows before and after photos of some of the murals.