While an old chair is not an unusual item to be found in a museum, it may be unusual that we have eleven of the twelve original courthouse jury chairs in our museum. These chairs were used in the 1896 courthouse, in the District Court, and may have been used for over fifty years in that building until the new courthouse replaced it in 1958.
All eleven of the chairs are in use, even today, in the museum. Nine of them are placed in the Stephens Gallery around the tables which are used for board meetings and are also used by the public when conducting research. We keep two chairs near the reception desk for use by visitors, as well. The twelfth chair is in Delta in private ownership, rescued by a well-known attorney of earlier years.
The museum acquired the chairs in 1965, a gift from the Board of County Commissioners that year. While the Delta County Historical Society added cushions to the chairs years ago, the jurors had no such comfort. Perhaps the lack of comfort kept them awake, if needed.
Imagine how many lives were affected by those that sat in those chairs years ago?
Jury chairs from the 1896 courthouse are still in use at the Delta County Museum
Jim
Museum Director / Curator and Newsletter Editor
Jim Wetzel (970) 874-8721
Linda
Life on a Colorado Farm 
How cool. Those old wooden chairs, whether from a court house, church etc have stood the test of time! The craftsmanship it took to make them. Beautiful.
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What wonderful chairs! And so nice that they are still being used. Is there any chance that we could see more photos of the museum? Little, old towns have the. best.ever museums!
Glad your hay is up! Good hay year. I’m curious, if you don’t mind, what is hay going for there? Before winter was over it was somewhere around 300/ton plus trucking. ACK!!
I loved all the helpers in yesterdays blog. You may need to get a side by side, a Razor or something similar if you your crew keeps expanding. Or a trailer. I’m sure that Fuzzy wouldn’t mind driving. He’d like it better than riding in the trailer. Mine tell me all the time that I can ride in the trailer and they will drive! Happy Monday
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COOL!!
Blessings on your week!
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Beautiful chairs. I can’t tell from the picture whether there is carving on the upper back of the chairs.
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That is so neat, Linda.. I was looking at those chairs just thinking of how many people sat there for so many years… AWESOME… Love it.
Hugs,
Betsy
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‘the lack of comfort’ – perfect!
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That’s neat that you have (and use) those old jury chairs. I would think they help make history come alive for visitors.
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They are gorgeous chairs. Glad they are cared for.
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They are certainly very substantial chairs. You wouldn’t want to have a bad back and have to sit on one of those through a long trials. I think the trials wee much shorter in those days.
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I love that they’re not simply a display, but still in-use! Nice to have a chance to see ‘your’ museum, too!
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I like them and that they are preserved but they do look like they’d keep you awake!
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They’re lovely old chairs and they definitely have stories to tell. Neat that they’re still used like that. You do such great work volunteering with your museum and passing on the great stories like this one and the bear one above (or below, whichever it is…I’m catching up as usual).
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beautiful chairs..I expected more western looking chairs. Ours are the half round western looking ones:)
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I don’t think I’d want to sit through a long trial in one of those, but it is nice to see bits of history preserved.
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