This freight gate originally stood on Court Street as the courthouse’s freight entrance, with paper supplies, garbage, and prisoners passing through it in both directions. When the wrought iron fence around the Courthouse Square was removed in the early 1950s, much of it went to private homes in Sullivan County. This gate was taken to a home in Lopez and placed in front of a carriage barn on Church Street. As cars replaced horse-drawn carriages, the courthouse custodian removed his carriage house and replaced it with a garage. Because the garage walls were wider than the gates cemented into the ground, the gates were opened all the way to let cars through the garage doors and remained standing that way for decades.