BOONE, Iowa- The Boone Community turned out on Friday to celebrate 100 years of the current Boone County Courthouse. A ceremony was held on the east side of the building. A group of Iowa Freemasons did a reenactment of the ceremony in 1918. The group has a history of stone masons past in helping to lay cornerstones at public buildings, and churches.

The actual idea to hold this event came from two long-time Boone County employees who work in the building.

“This building is 100 years old and I think everybody needs to see how beautiful it is,” said Veronica Nystrom, Boone County Recorder. “We started this planning back in October I think we should’ve done it a little sooner.”

”Back in October we went before the Board of Supervisors, and asked them and they said that was a wonderful idea,” said Heidi Kokemiller, who has worked int he building for over 32 years. “It’s been lot of work but it’s been a lot of fun we found things we thought never existed up in the attic and the basement,  it has been a learning experience, and a fun experience.”

“When we went back to the newspaper articles from 1918, and found out that we could not open up the cornerstone because it said that they would not be able to open it up, until the building was demolished,” said Nystrom. The cornerstone contains a time capsule.

The county has acquired and restored a safe, and will create a new time capsule this coming summer.

There was also some interesting stories from the past, including about where the courthouse should be located.

This used to be Boonesboro, formally Montana,” said Kokemiller. “They tried to vote to get the courthouse downtown, and that failed miserably, the rural folks wanted out here so that’s how it ended up here.”