Courthouse Jury Chairs | Life on a Colorado Farm

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?