In the early 1800s, Florida was a United Stated Territory. It had two courts, one in Saint Augustine for East Florida and the other in Pensacola for West Florida. Like all other states at the time, Florida had only one federal district court when it became a state in 1845.
Florida later was divided into Northern and Southern Districts. Orlando was part of the Southern District. The district’s judges traveled from courthouse to courthouse around the state to hear and to resolve cases.
Florida’s newest federal district court has grown into one of the busiest in the nation.
By the 1960s, the caseload of the Southern District had risen dramatically, and the district suffered the largest backlog of cases in the nation. In 1962, Congress approved the creation of the Middle District of Florida, the first new federal court district created since 1928. In its first decade, the caseload of the Middle District surpassed that of the Southern District.
The Orlando Federal Courthouses
United States Post Office
The first place in which the federal courts held court proceedings in Orlando was the United States Post Office (left), built in 1917, at 40 East Central Boulevard. The building housed the post office, the United States District Court, and related court agencies.
The Orange County Courthouse
In 1927, the Orange County Courthouse (above) at 65 E. Central Boulevard was completed. The United States District Court began using courtrooms in this building because of limited space in the post office building. In 1941, the United States District Court moved into the United States Post Office at 51 East Jefferson Street.
The George C. Young Federal Annex Courthouse
The six-story federal building at 80 North Hughey Avenue (above) was completed in 1975. It originally housed not only the district court, as well as numerous other federal agencies. In 1993, it was designated the George C. Young Federal Annex Courthouse after the Honorable George C. Young.
George C. Young, Orlando’s First Full-Time Federal Jurist
George Cressler Young received his law degree from the University of Florida College of Law in 1940. After a year of private law practice in Winter Haven, Florida, he served as a lieutenant in the United States Navy during World War II.
Young returned to private practice in Miami before becoming administrative assistant to United States Representative George Smathers. Young spent the next 10 years in private practice in Jacksonville.
In 1961, President John F. Kennedy nominated Young to the United States District Courts for the Southern and Northern Districts of Florida. Judge Young traveled all over the state before being permanently assigned to the newly formed Middle District, where he served as Chief Judge from 1973 to 1981.
In 1993, President George H.W. Bush signed legislation naming the Orlando Federal Building the George C. Young Federal Annex Courthouse in recognition of Judge Young’s outstanding service as a jurist.
Young retired in 2004.
This new courthouse building was dedicated September 21, 2007. Rising 120 feet, the 304,000-square foot building and two-acre park, together with the adjacent George C. Young Federal Building, occupy an entire downtown block. The concrete, glass and metal modernist design of the courthouse was inspired, in part, by the tower of the 1941 Federal Building and Post Office. The sunlight-filled courtrooms, jury rooms, offices, and public spaces symbolize the clear light of reason represented by our laws.
Al Held
Al Held, the designer of the stained-glass window panels, was an American abstract expressionist painter. He was internationally recognized for his large-scale, hard-edge paintings.
When approached about the Orlando Courthouse project, Held created five paintings from which to choose for the large stained-glass window in the atrium. Held then created another painting and donated it and the four remaining paintings for the construction of the five smaller window panels in the lobby. The art glass—much of it hand-blown—is laminated between layers of clear glass. These windows are Held’s final work.