Byron White United States Courthouse, Federal courthouse in Ballpark District, Denver, United States.
Byron White United States Courthouse is a four-story Neoclassical building that occupies an entire city block and features sixteen Ionic columns clad in Colorado Yule marble at its main entrance. The structure currently serves as the seat of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
Authorized in 1903 but funded only in 1908, the building was designed by Egerton Swartwout of Tracy, Swartwout and Litchfield, chosen in 1909 by Treasury supervising architect James Knox Taylor under the Tarsney Act. Construction began in 1910 and, slowed by insufficient funds, the post office and courthouse opened in January 1916. It was listed on the National Register in 1973 and renamed for Justice Byron White in 1994.
The main lobby's marble-faced walls carry the names of Pony Express riders, and the frieze above the Stout Street entrance lists cities east and west of Denver to suggest mail moving across the country. Marble seats on the northeast and southwest sides are inscribed with maxims on rest and labor.
The main entrance faces Stout Street on the southeast elevation, reached by a run of grand stairs behind the sixteen Ionic columns; the Rocky Mountain sheep sculptures sit at the southwest entrance. The building fills an entire city block between Stout and Eighteenth Street, so it is best circled on foot to read the inscriptions on each side.
The building's facade incorporates Colorado Yule marble, the same stone used in the construction of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. This material connection links the two monuments across the country in an unexpected way.
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