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The Courthouse Eagle

CAPTION: Two area historians have documented the history of the eagle showcased at the Livingston County Courthouse.

C-T Photo/Catherine Stortz Ripley

Editor’s Note: Gary Maberry and Joe G. Dillard have been working on the history of the courthouse eagle for a couple of months now and think they have determined its history, but do not know who vandalized it. The Livingston County Courthouse eagle... what a fascinating story.

Where did it come from? How did it get there? Who vandalized it? The eagle has been there for a long, long time and the controversy surrounding its origin and history has sparked a plethora of newspaper articles (at least six that we know about). Going to see the courthouse eagle was a ritual for us back in the ’40s and ’50s every time we came to town. It was majestically suspended between the second and third floors on a rod just above a big American flag. At that time, we didn’t know much of its history but, recently, Gary Maberry and I decided to trace its origin.

Gary made the first and most important discovery on the Livingston County Library’s website. He found the original article that confirmed who provided it and how it got there. It was dated Friday, December 23, 1921, entitled, “American Eagle Mounted” and stated: “The young American eagle killed by Arnold Barnes, Blue Mound township, Nov. 24, has been received from the taxidermist, James C. Haley, Kansas City, and is now mounted in the opening on the second floor of he courthouse. Mr. Haley, in a letter to County Clerk J. M. Gallatin, stated the eagle was the largest bird of its kind of his authentic knowledge, having a spread of eight feet when it arrived in his shop in Kansas City, four days after it had been killed. The bird is mounted facing the north with its head turned slightly to the right, giving one the impression as he walks up the steps to the second floor of the building that it is ready for flight.”

After a 60-year lapse, there was another newspaper article (Saturday, July 11, 1981) titled, “Courthouse treasures its legal eagle” that stated that the eagle had been vandalized (one wing and some toes were missing) and that there was a controversy about how the eagle got there and who shot it (obviously, few people remembered the 1921 article). Some leading candidates were Maurice Dorney (Chief of Police), a kid near Blue Mound, or someone in Monroe Township. That article sparked even more candidates and in another article and six days later the names of Ed Herriford and Arnold Barnes surfaced. Of course now we know that it was Arnold Barnes, but at time there were doubters.

Bert Maberry weighed in on the controversy in a follow-up article in “Reflections” column dated Friday, July 17, 1981 and titled, “The Eagle – Livingston County Courthouse”: “Bert Maberry of Hale writes what he described as “my two-cents worth on the eagle.” Said Mr. Maberry: “Arnold Barnes killed the bird in the Blue Mound area years ago and at one time there was a card on the perch that told that Arnold shot the bird; also the date, which I think was June 1921. Not sure about the date. It was in the Chillicothe paper at the time the bird was shot. Ralph Brown tells us he was living down at Blue Mound and that the eagle had been “taking a bunch of suckling pigs. I don’t know how many but he packed off a lot of them. He got one every day.” Naturally this annoyed the pig owners, so Arnold Barnes, who was trapping down in Dickens Hollow, was alerted. Mr. Brown said Barnes “Shot him (the eagle) right out in the canyon.” Brown, who guessed he must have been about 16 years old then, said Barnes brought the eagle to the county courthouse. Mr. Brown said he didn’t know who had it stuffed.”

Any and all doubt who killed the eagle was erased in an article dated Monday, July 27, 1981 when Bill Plummer, in his famous “Reflections” column stated, “Today we lay to rest the ghost of the eagle in the county courthouse, the one on the horizontal bar on the second floor, under the U.S. flag, a dead bird somebody swiped one wing from. The inscription is gone and nobody seemed just sure who gave the eagle to the county. Recently, we noted that the voting was two-to-one that the eagle was shot by one Arnold Barnes in the Blue Mound area. One report was that the eagle shot in Dickens Holler as a consequence of stealing pigs from Blue Mound farmers. We have a note from Mrs. Arnold (Olive) Barnes, 501-1/2 West Washington, Carrollton, Mo. 64633: ‘It has been brought to my attention of your article, Reflections, in your paper… about the uncertainty of who is responsible for the stuffed eagle in the courthouse. Bert Maberry and Ralph Brown are correct. My husband, Arnold Barnes, shot the bird when he was a small boy and was living at Blue Mound. As Mr. Brown says, the eagle would get a pig out of the pen each morning. Arnold and I would go to the courthouse when we would be in Chillicothe and Arnold’s name was on the eagle at that time, but guess as years go by it has been destroyed. If Arnold was alive today, he could tell us what he shot the bird with and how big the wingspan was. He has told me, but I can’t remember. I hope this has helped clear up this matter.””

So there we have it. The courthouse eagle was killed by Arnold Barnes near Blue Mound on Nov. 24, 1921, taken to Kansas City to be mounted and delivered to the Livingston County Courthouse by Dec. 23, 1921. Harold Maberry supplied the following information about Olive and Arnold Barnes in 2003. So, in the continuing saga of the courthouse eagle, we know that Arnold "Buffalo" Barnes shot the eagle in Blue Mound. In 1921, James C. Hayley of Kansas City originally mounted it and sent it to the Livingston County Courthouse, Steve Nibarger restored it in the late 1980s, Bill Coleman built the glass display case, and a little bit later, Kelly Poling, owner of Original Artworks by Kelly, added glass panes to the side of the box to make the eagle more visible. He also painted a blue sky background behind the eagle.

Epilogue - As of this writing, the eagle is mounted in a glass case and affixed to the west wall on the second floor of the courthouse. A sign above the case honors the donors who gave money to have the eagle restored. It reads: Funding for the eagle case restoration project provide for by: Grand River Audubon Society, Grand River Collectors, Gordon Smith, Barbara Lame, Eva Danner, Max Smith, and Ken Lauhoff.