The red-brick structure dominated Orlando’s skyline and the building was impressive in its details as well as its size. Inset panels of finely cut brick graced the outer walls; the floors of the foyer and hall were paved with squares of black and white marble; and the windows featured leaded stained-glass.
As the years passed, it became less of a giant on the landscape as it was joined by other sizable buildings sprouting around it. Finally in 1927, the building gave up its role as courthouse to the columned building that now houses the Orange County Regional History Center. The two sat side by side for three decades; the old, red courthouse housed the offices of the County Welfare Department and, at the top, a history museum showcasing memorabilia collected by the Antiquarian Society.
By the mid-1950s, county officials decided to demolish the time-worn Victorian courthouse. Its red sandstone brick was crumbling, sometimes causing hazards to passersby below. A tree had even sprouted in one of its towers. The building was officially condemned in late July 1957, and in late December, officials opened the cornerstone before it was demolished, to find items including Ada Bumby’s Indianhead penny.
When the red courthouse was demolished, its loss inspired the same kind of public outcry its appearance had fostered almost 70 years before. “When that courthouse was gone, I felt a real personal sense of loss,” former county supervisor of elections Dixie Barber said in 1986. “I'm not averse to having some changes, but I am opposed to everything old being torn down.”