Old Wheeler County Courthouse Museum, Bartlett, Nebraska

This great retired courthouse was built in 1917 in Bartlett, Wheeler County, Nebraska. It today acts as a county museum that is only open on special occasions. I was very lucky to meet the county clerk in the current 1982 courthouse that remembered working here. She gave me a personal tour of the structure. I was told that they built a new courthouse because it would have cost the county too much to make the building handicapped accessible.

She also told me that this 1917 structure was built because the previous 1888 courthouse that stood at this site burned down, and the fire was believed to have been caused by the county judge who was fond of cigars and had a tendency to through away his cigar butts in the trash.