____________________________________________________________________________ Old Wooden Courthouse Burned 40 Years Ago Aug. 9 Many Valuable Pike County Papers Have Been Lost. August 9th 1935 commemorates the 40th anniversary of the burning of the Old Wooden Courthouse at Murfreesboro on the site where the present courthouse now stands. Deeds and Mortgages records thru Book "Q" and all court and other public records were totally destroyed at that time. Shortly after the Courthouse was burned in 1895 Hon. J.C. Pinnix was appointed as Commissioner to erect a new courthouse. Under his watchful care and management a new Brick courthouse was erected from brick made in a kiln just across Prairie Creek East of Murfreesboro near the old ford on the Murfreesboro-Arkadelphia road. This courthouse served the county until it was declared unsafe by architects and condemned. County Judge W.B. Horton in 1931 appointed A.P. Terrell of Murfreesboro, Ed Kirkham of Delight and Dr. J.N. Pate of Glenwood as Commissioners who contracted the building of a new Courthouse to May and Sharp of Little Rock, who constructed the present courthouse which cost the taxpayers of the county about $48,000.00, for which bonds were issued after same had been voted at popular election. The first term of Circuit Court was held in the present Courthouse in March 1932. Pike county records were also destroyed in 1859 when the first courthouse ever to be erected in Pike county was destroyed. The editor of this paper was recently informed by Senator Alfred Featherston of Murfreesboro that since the public records were destroyed by fire that he experiences little trouble in abstract land titles in Pike county because of the burned records. We inspected his abstract plant which he has built by his own effort and which he keeps down to date by taking off the records onto his books all land transfers as they are made. So far as the present records cover he has a complete Abstract already made up on each tract of land in Pike county, bound into books containing all transfers on each section of lands and each block of towns. His books consist of over 40,000 separate sheets stored in steel filing cabinets which he keeps in the fireproof vault in the Owens building in north side of the square formerly occupied by the Farmers and Merchants Bank. His modern books are a valuable asset to those needing title information in the county. ____________________________________________________________________________ Pike County Tribune, Volume 14, Number 25, August 2, 1935, page 1, column 3. The Pike County clerk's office and court records were first destroyed on February 13, 1855. The second courthouse fire and destruction of court records occurred in March 1895. ____________________________________________________________________________ David Kelley 1997