Benton County's First Courthouse? A Hotel Will Do for Now
As Benton County organizes, commissioners lease the Riverside Hotel in Prosser for courtrooms, offices, and a temporary jail—because there are no houses to rent.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The commissioners of Benton county have leased the Riverside hotel at Prosser for court house purposes. The petitions for organization of the county are all ready to be presented to the governor and superior court on June 9, ninety days after the date of the adjournment of the legislature. The lease on the hotel building is for one year, with the privilege of two. The rooms upstairs will be rented to the county officials as living rooms, there being no houses to rent in the city. A temporary jail will be constructed. Steel cells which can later be placed in a permanent structure will be put in. The officers were nominated at a convention held several weeks ago and confirmed by the county commissioners, who have the power to appoint them.—Republic.
“The rooms upstairs will be rented to the county officials as living rooms, there being no houses to rent in the city.”
In 1905, Benton County was just forming, and repurposing a hotel as a courthouse was a practical solution to a housing shortage. Today, as Kennewick and the Tri-Cities continue to grow, local governments still scramble for space and repurpose buildings—though the stakes and the paperwork are far greater.
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