Lewis County to continue restoration, updates to historic courthouse
This summer, Lewis County will continue restoration work on its historic courthouse in Chehalis, the county seat of the local government.
The Lewis County Board of Commissioners approved a request from Lewis County Capital Infrastructure Specialist Matt Patana during a Tuesday business meeting to extend the use of a historic courthouse restoration grant for an additional year to end next summer in June.
The grant has been extended through multiple budget years since 2022 and next will go to finishing exterior restoration and updating the building's fire alarm system.
The grant funding the project comes from both state and county coffers as part of the Washington state Historic County Courthouse Program, which offers grant funding to restore and maintain historic courthouse buildings across the state.
According to Patana, the grant that has funded recent improvements and continues to fund new updates includes $375,736 in state funding and $238,000 in county funding as well as credit for $172,000 contributed by the county for previous work on the building.
A total of $150,000 of the state funding was awarded to the county as part of the Washington state 2025-2027 Capital Budget during the Washington state 2025 legislative session.
Patana expects the most noticeable work from the public perspective will be restoration work on the southern facade of the building, which faces the Lewis County Law and Justice Center across West Main Street in Chehalis. Work to update the fire alarm system on the interior of the building will be less obvious.
Last summer, D&R Masonry Inc. out of Milwaukee Oregon won the contract to do masonry repair work on the north and east sides of the property with a low bid of $99,000.
That work focused on replacing and repairing failing portions of the exterior masonry work.
The Lewis County Courthouse in Chehalis is listed on the national register of historic places and was first dedicated in 1927. The building will celebrate 100 years in 2027.
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