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QUESTION: COULD THIS ROOF HAVE JUST BEEN CLEANED FOR 300-500,000?

FUNCTIONALLY, IT LOOKS GREAT AND WAS SEALED WITH LEAD.

Old Courthouse gets new copper roof

Old Courthouse getting shiny new $3.9 million copper roof and the funding is the same as last time -- federal stimulus money. In 1941, the current roof was paid for by Roosevelt's WPA.

pictures:

http://stltoday.mycapture.com/mycapture/folder.asp?event=988965&CategoryID=38578

article

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/F7EC0E389BBCE09B862577120080E6ED?OpenDocument

T. LOUIS — The Old Courthouse is getting a bright new copper roof.

The $3.9 million project is paid for through the stimulus act that Congress adopted last year. The project will replace copper that was installed in 1941 with money from the Work Projects Administration, an earlier federal effort to deal with hard economic times.

The project does not include the Old Courthouse dome. Workers on scaffolds are removing the old green-colored copper panels from the four wings of the building and installing new copper panels.

"With full sunshine, it will be quite a sight," said Frank Mares, deputy superintendent of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. "Like a brand-new penny, at least for a while."

Eventually, the new roof also will take on the greenish hue of exterior copper, he said.

Mares said the job had been on the National Park Service's wish list for at least a decade. The old roof leaks.
"It was always pushed back," he said. "We were fortunate to get it included in the recovery dollars."

The Tradesmen Group, a restoration company in suburban Columbus, Ohio, is doing the work. Mares said part of the contract lets the company keep the old copper for salvage.

A project spokesman said the new roof was made of interlocking panels, 34 by 20 inches, that are sealed with caulking. The old roof was sealed with lead.

Other springtime chores at the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial include replacing sections of sidewalk in the riverfront park and $900,000 in improvements to the electronics of the tram that takes visitors to the top of the Gateway Arch. The courthouse is part of the greater Arch grounds.

The Old Courthouse, once the St. Louis County Courthouse, was built in phases before the Civil War and was the setting for the first trials in Dred Scott's and Harriet Scott's bids for freedom from slavery. A jury sided with them in 1850, but the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the verdict six years later.

After the city and county were separated in 1877, the Old Courthouse became a city building and was used until after the Civil Courts Building opened in 1930 at Market Street and 12th Street (now Tucker Boulevard).. The St. Louis Art League and other nonprofit agencies used the Old Courthouse until 1940, when the federal government took it over in the early days of the riverfront renewal project that eventually led to the Arch.

In 1941, the federal government spent $95,000 to install a new roof on the Old Courthouse and build offices for the Park Service. It also paid to clean and repaint the exterior of the building, which had become dingy from the sooty coal that once was used for fuel in this area.