Bradley County Courthouse opens after electrical fire

BRADLEY COUNTY, Tenn. (WDEF) — After an electrical fire closed the Bradley County Courthouse for 14 months, it reopened on Monday.

At the Bradley County Courthouse, people were moving back in. The courthouse reopened after a fire shut it down more than a year ago. While some offices were closed, others like the Register of Deeds office were back in business.

“I’d like to thank Broad Street Methodist Church for giving us our temporary location. It was tight, but we enjoyed the time we were there and we thank them very much for they did for us, but we are so excited to be back,” said Dina Swafford, the Register of Deeds.

They did all of the moving themselves.

“Of course we were down three days, trying to get everything set up, which was the worse of it, but now we are ready. We are ready to go,” Swafford said.

Last September, firefighters were called to the Bradley County Courthouse. They discovered a fire started in the mechanical room. Firefighters said there was smoke damage to the entire building.

When the electrical fire happened at the Bradley County Courthouse, there wasn’t a sprinkler system, but now that’s changed.

“There are hundreds and hundreds of miles of piping, where we put in a sprinkler system. If they look up at the ceiling all they will see are small sprinkler heads, but I assure you above that drop ceiling is hundreds of mile of piping,” Mayor Gary Davis said.

Mayor Davis says it took several months to install.

“There is a lot of work that has been done, money been spent bringing the building into code, I guess you could say with the sprinkler system,” Mayor Davis said.

He says people may not realize all the work that was done.

“Be expecting it to be the same building it was before with just a little fresher look and a lot of upgrades,” Mayor Davis said.

While the Register of Deeds Office is up and running, the Bradley County Clerk’s Office will be open on Thursday.

Commissioners had their first meeting in the courthouse since the renovations on Monday night.