It’s Fountain County’s best kept secret.
Just inside the heavy bronze doors of the Depression-era courthouse in Covington, more than 2,500-square-feet of murals adorn the walls.
Stretching from the entryway to the head of the grand staircase and wrapping around to the upstairs courtrooms, the paintings depict scenes from the European discovery of America through the settlement of western Indiana.
It’s the only known historical display of its kind on the globe.
“I find that people who are not from the area appreciate them more than the locals, as a general rule,” said county transplant Nancy Wagner of Fountain County Art Council, leading an effort to preserve the priceless works of art.
This summer, local preservationists will begin the meticulous process of protecting the murals from further aging.
The murals were painted from 1937-1939, during a time when public art was installed in buildings carried out by the Works Progress Administration.
Covington-born renown muralist Eugene Savage directed 11 artists – all but one of them women – representing a variety of talents.
Savage painted the two entryway panels himself. (Unlike the others directly painted on the walls, Savage did his on canvas.)
Over the years, temperature extremes and just plain aging took their toll. In the early 1980s, local artists restored the murals.
The go-to varnish for protecting artwork those days ended up doing more damage. Trapped moisture darkened and yellowed the murals, while bubbling up areas of the paint.
An effort to stabilize the murals didn’t last as long as expected. Mary Yeager of Acanthus Arts in Williamsport, who did the project with husband Brian Fick, said it was a temporary “Band-Aid” until a proper face lift could be done.
But the Art Council didn’t have the money. A pair of bids for a whole restoration blew past the group’s price range.
“It just killed us,” Wagner said. “There’s no way we could do anything.”
With damage to the murals worsening, she approached the county about funding the repairs. Acanthus submitted a $227,000 bid.
Private donations and grants will cover most of the cost, with the county matching the rest dollar-for-dollar.
“No one has something else like this and we’re proud of it,” county commissioner Tim Shumaker, the project’s liaison, said of the murals.
An endowment fund has been set up through the Western Indiana Community Foundation to cover future conservation and promotion.
It will take four months for Yeager and Fick to preserve the paintings. Once the stabilization and varnish are removed, the murals will be cleaned, filled in and coated with new varnish.
Meanwhile, the Art Council is pondering ways to draw tourists to the courthouse when the work is done. Mostly local residents see the murals.
“Beyond that, a lot of people don’t know they exist,” Yeager said.