From the Ipswich Tribune, Thursday, May 30, 1935 edition
USED OXEN WHEN OLD COURTHOUSE WAS BEING BUILT
By O. W. Cochrane
When I came to this county in 1886 the county records were kept in a small building just south of where Mrs. Conrad now lives. They were soon transferred to the building that is now just North of the Bank of Ipswich, which stood where the Descher building now stands. The court room was in an old skating rink which stood where the Standard Oil station now stands. The jail a small wooden building was located South of the Parmley home.
In 1891 we held court and there was a fellow that worked in the Bank at Bowdle whom they claimed had defaulted and they sent the sheriff to El Paso, TX to bring him back. When the court was called and his trial came up before the court, I was the deputy sheriff and was sent to the jail after him.
There happened to be an attorney in the court, who was afterwards circuit judge of Brown County, talking with my brother, Stacy and S. H. Cranmer. Just as I came in they said, “There comes a fellow to be tried who has misappropriated money,” the attorney looked at me, thinking that I was the one who they had reference to and said, “you would know he was a criminal by the looks of him.”
I have the distinction of being the only man who worked a yoke of oxen on the old courthouse. I had the job of drawing the sand and unloading the brick, which I did with one team of horses and one yoke of oxen.
County Seat fights were very common in those days. Roscoe thought that they should have the County seat as they were a few miles nearer the center of the county. Of course, we had to go through with the fight in order to issue the bonds to build the court house, which was done at a special election.
I remember being at Eureka, SD one night when they were having a meeting to make arrangements to fight for the County seat. Their claim was that they had a railroad and Leola had none, and they thought that should entitle them to the county seat. C. H. Barron of Ipswich happened to be there that night and they called on him for a speech, he praised the town of Eureka as being a very thrifty and wide awake town and all they needed was the county seat. Ipswich had two, one at Old Edmunds and the other at Ipswich. Edmunds county didn’t need but one and they would sell the old county seat at Edmunds and it would be much cheaper than to carry on the fight at Leola. It is all over with and we now have one of the grandest court houses in the state of South Dakota.
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