James M. Ashley and Thomas W.L. Ashley United States Courthouse
- Architect
- James A. Wetmore
- Year
- 1932
- Style
- Neoclassical
- City
- Toledo, OH
Built in 1932, this Neoclassical federal building in downtown Toledo serves the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio and is named for two former Congressmen, Republican James M. Ashley and his great-grandson, Democrat Thomas W. L. Ashley. It rose from Toledo's early-20th-century push to build a City Beautiful civic center: officials adopted Beaux Arts planning principles in a 1924 master plan, assembled a civic quadrangle bounded by Jackson, Erie, and Orange streets and Spielbusch Avenue starting in 1925, and replaced an overcrowded 1888 federal building with this courthouse and custom house.
the building
Civic center site. The courthouse occupies a quadrangle the city purchased in 1925 as part of a 1924 Beaux Arts master plan for a monumental civic center, whose first structure went up in 1926 — this four-story courthouse and custom house followed, replacing the crowded 1888 federal building it superseded.
the style
The building follows Neoclassical architecture, the standard idiom for federal courthouses of its era, fitting the monumental, Beaux Arts-planned civic center Toledo's leaders envisioned for the site.
More on Neoclassicalthe architect
The design is credited to James A. Wetmore, Acting Supervising Architect of the U.S. Treasury, who oversaw federal building design nationally; architect Graham H. Woolfall presented Wetmore's design to Toledo officials in 1929.
significance
The building is individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places and continues to serve as a federal courthouse.
nearby
- Lucas County Courthouse and Jail
- Toledo Main Library
- Lasalle, Koch and Company Department Store
- Valentine Theatre
- Pythian Castle
- Tower on the Maumee