Every county in North Carolina has a courthouse. But Guilford is a rare exception — it’s the only county with two. In this installment of Carolina Curious, WFDD’s Paul Garber has the story.
There’s one courthouse in Greensboro, the county seat, but also one in High Point.
Glenn Perkins, curator of community history at the Greensboro History Museum, says the story of the dual courthouses traces its roots all the way back to the early 1900s, when the city of High Point was experiencing rapid growth.
“There are some very significant efforts on the part of High Point leaders between about 1910 and 1911 to break off and establish a whole new county with High Point at the center,” he says.
Greensboro leaders, of course, pushed back against that effort. Perkins says that at the time, putting a new county building in the Furniture City may have been a peace offering to keep that break from happening.
Perkins adds that in 1943, the General Assembly passed a law allowing superior court cases to be held at that building in High Point, marking the first time in North Carolina that such a session occurred outside of a county seat.
“So now it becomes North Carolina's 101st courthouse," he says. "And so from then on, Guilford really has this sort of unique situation happening among all the counties in North Carolina.”
Perkins notes that Guilford isn’t the only county with two major population centers. Wake County hosts two of the state’s top seven, Raleigh and Cary, and yet there’s only one hall of justice.
Officials with the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts say the Greensboro courthouse on South Eugene Street serves as the main county courthouse, housing most administrative offices and superior and district court functions.
The High Point location, now on East Green Drive, is considered a branch courthouse. But it handles a full range of court services for cases originating in the High Point area.