“Madison Indiana Courthouse Burns”

The Historic 154 year old Jefferson County Courthouse located in Madison Indiana burned today, no cause has yet been determined but on going construction work is a prime probability, crews were in the process of painting the beautiful building when the fire broke out.

The timing for this couldn’t be any worse, Madison is about to celebrate it’s Bicentennial starting June 6 with many activities scheduled including a reopening of the courthouse. The building was a center piece for the Downtown National Historic District and was an often visited destination for locals and tourists alike. Just this afternoon when my son and I were walking home from school we talked about how beautiful this landmark was and the wonderful gold color they had picked for the renovation.

The only good news to report from this is that there were no major injuries and everyone escaped safely. Hopefully this won’t damper the spirits of the Bicentennial Celebration that is scheduled to begin in a couple of weeks and also maybe they can salvage the building itself, but after witnessing the still smoldering fire tonight that might be a long shot.

Just as a side note Madison has endured it’s share of hardship recently, a couple of years ago two other Historic buildings burnt to the ground and to this day there has been no cause , also last September we lived thru Hurricane Ike with it’s 90 mph winds and then late this winter we were savaged by an ice storm. Kind of a string of bad luck wouldn’t you say, but at least no one has been seriously hurt thru all of this.

I posted a few shots of the fire as it really began to engulf the Bell Tower and firefighters arrived on the scene to begin the process of extinguishing it.