A piece of Harrison County history
LEE ZION, EDITOR
Harrison County Times-Reporter
Harrison County has a quirky history, dating back at least to the year the county was founded, in 1851. And part of that history is on the floor of the county courthouse in Logan. It has been there since 1911, the year the courthouse opened.
On the floor, in several places in the tile, you will find a row of swastikas.
Yes, THAT symbol. The courthouse was built at a cost of $100,000 in 1911, the equivalent of $3.5 million in 2026 currency, and swastikas were part of the mix.
The swastika later became the symbol of the Nazi Party in Germany. The icon of hatred and anti-Semitism was put in place a full decade before the Germans took this symbol and made it all about themselves, said Megan Reffett, auditor for the county and historian of the courthouse building.
Reffett does not have any record of why that symbol was chosen more than a century ago. However, according to Google, the swastika symbol dates back at least 5,000 years.
The original meaning translates roughly as “good fortune” in Sanskrit. Buddhist temples throughout Asia still use it, as do maps showing the location of a temple. That form of swastika has its arms spinning to the left rather than to the right, as shown here.
Harrison County faced no significant backlash for its swastikas during World War II, at a time when the United States fought Nazi Germany, Reffett said.
Occasionally, people find out about the swastikas in Harrison County and post their surprise and disgust on the Internet. But other than that, no repercussions in the past 80 years.
Oddly enough, other courthouses in the United States also have swastikas. These include the Bonneville County Courthouse in Idaho and the Jefferson County Courthouse in Alabama.
