Milestone in rebuilding of fire-damaged courthouse

Contractors have finished a milestone in the rebuilding of the fire-damaged Newton County Courthouse.

Workers used a crane to lift the 18 thousand pound clock tower onto the roof of the courthouse Wednesday.

It took about two hours.

Fire destroyed the courthouse on August 4, 2000.

County Judge Truman Dougharty tells KFDM News he hopes the courthouse will be ready to reopen by early next year.

Insurance and grants are paying for the $6 million project.

From KJAS

by Mike Lout

Nearly 10 years after fire completely destroyed the historic Newton County Courthouse, the long road to recovery and rebuilding took a major step on Tuesday when a new clock tower was raised to the top of the nearly completed building.

Newton city and county officials along with school children watched in amazement on Tuesday as a crane hoisted the structure and then gently set it on top of the courthouse.

It all began shortly before 6:00 p.m. on Friday, August 4, 2000 when Mary Coker of Newton, who was steam cleaning in front of Neal's Furniture on the Northeast side of the courthouse square, saw smoke coming out of the courthouse clock tower and called the fire department from a nearby store. Upon their arrival at the scene, the volunteers of the Newton Fire Department immediately radioed for help from Jasper and all other local towns.

The fire quickly spread from the clock tower to the rest of the roof and within a very short time the whole top of the courthouse was on fire. As other fire departments from as far away as Kirbyville arrived to join in the battle, the fire spread down to the third floor and then to the second floor. However firemen kept steady streams of water on the fire from all directions and almost an hour and half after the fire had started it was finally brought under control, leaving only empty walls still standing above the first floor. Many firemen who fought the fire believe the fire had most likely been burning in the attic of the courthouse for some time before it was seen coming through the clock tower.

County Judge Truman Dougharty who was elected to the position just over a year before shed tears and cried as he stood on the courthouse lawn. Dougharty, a longtime citizen of the county said that he and other members of the court had talked about the danger of fire, and had recently been denied a state grant to install fire sprinklers within the building which was built in 1902. However, he said that he and the others had recently been told that there was a good chance that they would receive the grant in the coming September. As Dougharty spoke to KJAS Radio News on that dark day, he asked everyone listening on the radio to pray for Newton County.

District Clerk Abby Stark and other county officials seemed to believe that most of the courthouse records would be saved, despite the fire. In addition to many of the records being kept in fireproof areas, Stark and the others said that most of the records were backed up at other locations. However, all agreed that records prior to 1940 could be lost forever. As it turned out few records were lost, but attorneys still remember the smell of the documents that survived.

As the fire began to crawl across the roof of the structure, Newton County Sheriff Wayne Powell and his deputies wasted no time in removing the sixteen or so inmates from their jail cells at the county jail on the south side of the building and transported them to the Newton Correctional Facility, a private prison located North of town. Powell said, "we got 'em all out of there where they would be safe from the fire. They're all ok. As soon as they called me from home that was the first thing that was on my mind."

Since the sheriff and his dispatchers had to leave the jail area, the county was without dispatchers for some time until later that evening when they sent a dispatcher to the Jasper County Sheriff's Department to take calls and direct them by radio to deputies in Newton County.

Despite the size and heat of the fire, there was only one injury reported. A Jasper Firefighter received a small injury to his arm as he tried to bust out a window to enter the building.