The Washington County Historic Courthouse in Stillwater, Minnesota’s oldest standing courthouse, is getting another major makeover — this time on the outside.

The courthouse abruptly closed in June 2022 for several months when crews discovered a fracture in one of the heavy timber trusses holding up the roof of the 1870 building.

This year, a $4.5 million exterior restoration project is underway at the corner of Third and Pine streets.

Crews, along with construction manager Kraus-Anderson, are restoring the building’s exterior, copper roof and dome; doing brick and mortar repair, and grading part of the site. The work is expected to be completed early next year, said Eden Rogers, an engineer with Washington County Public Works.

Crews are bringing back and exposing certain original elements and materials that have been covered up over the years, including an integral gutter system that was built into the roof in the late 1800s.

“The last time it was reroofed, they just roofed right over it,” Rogers said.

The work, combined with window replacement, painting and site work, will help to stop the deterioration due to water intrusion that has been ongoing, according to Rogers.

Crews have had to search outside of Minnesota for materials “to match the historic nature that was there in the beginning,” Rogers said. “We’re going back to some of the original building materials and colors.”

The nature of the work required contractors “who are skilled and familiar with historic-structure work, so they’ve brought in contractors from all over the United States, including the roofing prime contractor from St Louis,” she said.

The historic courthouse was designed by architect Augustus Knight in the Italianate design. When it opened in 1870, it incorporated a courthouse, jail and sheriff’s residence. A newspaper at the time described it as a “substantial and elegant structure … unsurpassed by any similar building in the Northwest.”

Contractors work on scaffolding wrapped in debris containment netting as they restore the exterior of the Washington County Historic Courthouse in Stillwater. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

The Washington County Courthouse moved to its new location at 14949 N. 62nd St. in 1975. The historic courthouse — owned and maintained by the Washington County Parks Department — has a full time staff person on site and is open to the general public. Exhibits are held in the courthouse, and it is rented out for private events, concerts and mock trials, Rogers said.

FROM 2017: Washington County Historic Courthouse holds court again to mark 150th

During construction, the entire property, including the grounds, building and parking lot, are closed to the public.

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A West St. Paul man pleaded guilty this week to a second-degree murder charge in the fatal 2021 shooting of a Woodbury man at a Minneapolis fast food drive-through.

Lionell Jacque Hicks, 32, admitted to gunning down Tu’quan Smith, also 32, outside a White Castle restaurant on Lake Street two years ago, according to a guilty plea filed Wednesday in Hennepin County District Court.

Hicks’ plea agreement with prosecutors calls for a sentence of more than 38 years in prison, according to a news release issued Thursday by the office of Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty. A sentencing hearing is scheduled for Nov. 21.

“This was a callous, destructive act that brought unimaginable pain to the victim’s family and my thoughts are with them today,” Moriarty said in the news release. “Prioritizing community safety is paramount. Communities are suffering because there are too many guns in irresponsible hands that cause minor incidents to turn violent — and deadly — far too often. When necessary, we will use long prison sentences to protect the community and incapacitate those who commit this violence.”

Minneapolis police were dispatched just before 2 a.m. on Aug. 12, 2021, to the White Castle at 100 W. Lake St., where they found Smith sitting unconscious in the driver’s seat of a car, according to the criminal complaint. Officers provided first aid, but paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene.

Witnesses told investigators that the victim and the driver of another vehicle were trying to leave the restaurant but were blocked by a red Jeep, in which Hicks was a passenger, the complaint said.

As the motorists maneuvered around the Jeep, words were exchanged between the occupants of the three vehicles, and Hicks leaned out a window of the Jeep and fired several shots into Smith’s car, striking him twice, according to the complaint.

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With Halloween less than two weeks away, perhaps it was appropriate that the Minnesota Wild were beaten by what appeared to be a phantom goal on Thursday.

Pierre-Luc Dubois scored twice in the last minute of the first period to break a 2-2 tie, the first of which he appeared to have kicked through Marc-Andre Fleury’s legs, and Minnesota never recovered in a 7-3 loss at Xcel Energy Center.

Connor Dewar, Kirill Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek scored for the Wild, and Fleury stopped 21 of 26 shots.

Former Wild goaltender Cam Talbot, who was traded after the Wild signed Fleury to a two-year contract extension in July 2021, stopped 30 shots for the Kings. After pulling within two goals on Eriksson Ek’s third-period goal, the Wild pulled Fleury with just under 3 minutes to play and Los Angeles added a pair of empty-net goals.

The Kings rallied from a 2-1 deficit, getting the go-ahead goal late in the first period when Dubois beat Connor Dewar for a blind outlet pass from Kevin Fiala and somehow got it to roll between Fleury’s pads with 58 seconds left.

But Dubois kicked the puck to help him gain control, and it appeared neither he nor Dewar got another stick on it. The NHL office reviewed the play and declared the goal good.

“Review determined his stick made contact with the puck before it crossed the line,” Kris King, NHL executive vice president of hockey operations said in an email.

Twelve seconds later, Dubois scored from the slot and the Kings took a 4-2 lead into the intermission.

The Wild created a slew of good scoring chances over the next 30 minutes but none of them found the net, and Trevor Moore put the final nail in their coffin when he got a rebound off a blocked shot in the high slot and beat Fleury to make it 5-2 at 10:13 of the third period.

Freddy Gaudreau hit a post in the first period. Joel Eriksson Ek had two point-blank shots from the crease, and a Ryan Hartman one-timer was deflected high. Mats Zuccarello was stopped from the slot, and a Jonas Brodin one-timer missed the net with 23.9 seconds left in the frame.

The Kings scored just 2:39 into the first period when Carl Gundstrom took a pass behind the net and skated out into the right circle. His wrist shot glanced off Fleury and into the net for a 1-0 lead.

But the Wild tied it fairly quickly when Jon Merrill dumped a puck into the offensive zone off the glass and it bounced right to a rushing Dewar, who skated through the slot and fired a diagonal shot behind him that found the far corner to make it 1-1.

That gave the Wild some life, and less than 2 minutes later, they finished a long forecheck with a goal from Kaprizov. Brodin, who helped keep the puck on Wild sticks with a timely pinch, skated back into the high slot and fired a one-timer on a pass from Zuccarello. Kaprizov, who scored his first goal of the season in Tuesday’s victory at Montreal, redirected it past Talbot for a 2-1 lead at 8 minutes.

The Kings challenged for an offsides call but lost on review, but the Wild couldn’t make hay on the ensuing power play, although Gaudreau hit a crossbar, and Los Angeles regained the initiative.