BARTLESVILLE, Okla. — Two Bartlesville natives are the new owners of the former Washington County Courthouse.
People in the community are wondering what’s next for the downtown building.
FOX23 spoke with the brothers about the $1.2 million purchase.
Bryan and Dallas Hindman said they aren’t new to the real estate industry, but this will be the siblings’ first commercial property they’ve owned together.
The former Washington County Courthouse on Frank Phillips Boulevard was built back in 1913, but if you’re in downtown Bartlesville you know the courthouse as the building that sits in the middle of traffic.
The 24,000 square-foot building is no longer a courthouse as it’s now the business office for many tenants.
The historic building still holds all the history inside from pieces of the former jail, a courthouse room bench, a chandelier and even a safe.
“This building is an absolutely spectacular building, the architecture is amazing,” Dallas said.
The brothers said they plan to keep the tenants there and the history there as well, but have plans to enhance all of those things.
“Our number one focus is to bring the building back to its original intent. We want to just shine this thing up, we want to get the lights going, we want to improve the landscape and just make it as beautiful as it can be. All the bones are here. We just need to do a little bit more work on the building,” Dallas said.
Bryan said they want to help restore the history of the building.
“It just helps bring to life that history. Anything we can do to just try to create energy and get the community fired up about this, that's what we're all about,” Bryan said.
They said there are a few things they plan to keep and other things they had no idea were here.
“Even as it sits now, it still has some of the jail features and different fun things like that. There's a safe that nobody has the code to in it. We hear there's a time capsule here. So we're uncovering a lot of those stories. This purchase happened pretty quickly so we haven't got to explore all the different treasures that are yet to be discovered,” Dallas said.
Bryan said they hope to host events in the future at the building.
“I think that with this location, the history of it and the love this community has for the building, it would be natural to have some sort of fun celebrations out here. Nothing is planned yet but definitely something to keep your eyes on,” Bryan said.
The brothers couldn’t be more happy with the purchase of the building.
“It's almost still just hard to believe to be honest with you. It's crazy that this all started with us playing Monopoly as children,” Bryan said.
The brothers are requesting the community’s help in finding the original sign that said “Washington County” that used to be on top of the building. They said they want to place it back on the roof.
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