The Shelby County Courthouse celebrates its centennial today.

And its best-known guests have already taken their seats.

The six seated figures outside the building, which represent wisdom, peace, prosperity, justice, liberty and authority, have been photographed countless times and even featured in a few movies. Each was carved from a single piece of Tennessee white marble.

The 1909 building is a sign of its times, just after the turn of the last century. But there have been additions and subtractions since then.

For instance, the chiseled titles beneath each of the six figures weren’t added until 1934, and the globe lamps near them were added in 1964.

The Daily News is among the sponsors of today’s celebration, which will be on the courthouse’s south lawn from 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Guided tours of the courthouse will be available through the evening and there will be six new historical exhibits in the south corridor of the Courthouse.

Shelby County Mayor A C Wharton Jr. and Memphis Mayor Pro Tem Myron Lowery will take time from the last stages of the race for Memphis mayor to be part of the festivities.

Momentous moments

The south lawn is no stranger to political meetings. It was the sight of a memorable debate between U.S. Senate candidates Al Gore Jr. and Victor Ashe in 1984. Then-County Commissioner Ed Williams, who is now Shelby County historian, brought along a souvenir of one of the courthouse’s earlier tenants – a hat belonging to political boss E.H. Crump. Both contenders eyed it with some fascination but ultimately avoided wearing it for any sustained length of time.

The formal opening of the building was held on New Year’s Day 1910 and it came after one of the most important mayor’s races in the city’s history. The new courthouse was the new home of a new form of city government – the city commission system that replaced the old ward system in 1910.

Crump won the 1909 election, beginning a political reign in and out of elected office that lasted until his death in 1954.

The courthouse quickly grew cramped with city and county government offices as well as the courts – criminal and civil. Today, the courtrooms for civil courts and accompanying clerks’ offices remain.

The center of political power moved a block west of the courthouse with the construction in the late 1960s of the government buildings on what was then Main Street. The collection of buildings, including City Hall, the County Administration Building, the state office building and the federal building, are known as Civic Center Plaza.

However, the three Chancery Courtrooms have remained the destination of every significant political dispute in Memphis and Shelby County government that becomes a lawsuit.

In the courtrooms, the ceilings are high. In the basement, the brick walls are still formidable no matter what color they might be painted. A bare lightbulb below street surface and daylight makes its own shadows and leaves its own dark corners.

Any voice above a whisper tends to echo in the hallways. Only the spittoons are missing – and they were still around not too many years ago.

Living monument

It wasn’t always this way. There were attempts to modernize the courthouse over the decades that resulted in drop ceilings and new paneling. Much of that was stripped away in a major renovation and restoration completed in 1992. Bonds for the renovation were financed with litigation fees.

The courthouse no longer houses criminal courts. It is the domain of civil cases, with criminal courts moving to the Criminal Justice Center at 201 Poplar Ave. in the early 1980s.

But the courthouse has also seen some new arrivals over the years.

The bust of Andrew Jackson that was in Court Square when Tennessee seceded from the Union in 1861 has been centered for years in the south corridor. Because Jackson put down the nation’s first serious attempt at secession during his presidency, his likeness drew the ire of the pro-secession mobs that roamed a city that had been anti-secession just six months earlier.

The mob shattered a panel in the base of the bust that proclaimed “Our Federal Union, It Must And Shall Be Preserved.” The panel replacing it still looks a bit brighter than the rest of the base.