The Pulaski County Museum and Historical Society will be sponsoring the Life and Work of Architect Henry H. Hohenschild

The Pulaski County Museum and Historical Society will be sponsoring a historical event, The Life and Work of Architect Henry H. Hohenschild, this Saturday afternoon at one o’clock inside the Pulaski County Courthouse Museum on the courthouse square in Waynesville. Members of the public are invited to hear Ryan Reed, a historic preservationist, speak about the life and work of the architect that designed the 1903 Courthouse in Waynesville. Denise Seevers is the president of the Pulaski County Courthouse Museum and Historical Society.

The 1903 courthouse was built to modify architectural plans that were drawn up by Hohenschild in 1890 for a county courthouse that would have been built in Crocker if voters had approved an effort to have the county seat removed there. Voters didn’t approve that county seat removal proposal, nor an earlier attempt to have the county seat removed to Richland. The three communities along the Frisco Railroad Line each had more residents than Waynesville because Waynesville wasn’t served by a connection to the Frisco line. It was said at that time that there was no way to get into the county seat of Waynesville during periods of spring rains and flooding along Roubidoux Creek, the Gasconade River, and the creek that came down the hillside and ran through what is now Historic Route 66 in Downtown Waynesville.
Waynesville finally overtook the three railroad communities of Crocker, Dixon, and Richland in population in the 1930s with the advent of Route 66 and then in the 1940s with the construction of Fort Leonard Wood.