The Hillsborough Superior Court South building opened in 1992.

The excitement was palpable even among the typically staid officials who keep the wheels of justice greased and turning.

Yes, winter was coming, and along with it the predictably hectic span of 40 or so days known as the holiday season.

Still, even with the nerve-wracking specter of last-minute shopping, baking, tree-trimming, card-writing and gift-wrapping lurking barely inches above our collective heads, ready to dispense another dose of anxiety lest we miss out on the full-fledged panic attacks that love infiltrating what we call “the holiday spirit,” there was something special to look forward to come this particular holiday season.

But like the precocious 10-year-old who didn’t get the pony she was sure she’d find under the tree – or at least in the small barn out back – or the privileged middle school kid who demanded that the shiniest, most expensive bicycle in the shop show up Christmas morning adorned with a big, red bow with his name on it – a bunch of much less demanding, unassuming folks who make their living in the justice profession here in southern Hillsborough County were left crestfallen when they learned that Santa seemed to have forgotten to steer Rudolph and the sleigh onto the exit that leads to 30 Spring St. in Nashua.

But patience, as we know, is a virtue. Because Santa eventually delivered, although I have no idea how he and his elves packed $1.1 million worth of furniture – tables, chairs, desks, judges’ benches, comparatively comfy chairs for the jury boxes, giant file cabinets, flat storage and shelving – into his modest little sleigh for his return trip to 30 Spring St. in Nashua.

Thirty years ago this week – St. Patrick’s Day eve, to be precise – every single piece in that million-dollar lot of furniture was in place, transforming long, cavernous hallways on all three floors from barren echo chambers to handsomely appointed spaces where prosecutors, defense lawyers, court officers, court clerks, jurors, witnesses and defendants alike could conduct business efficiently and reasonably comfortably.

For we baby boomers reared in Nashua and lucky enough to live on the side of town served by the storied Spring Street Junior High School, it may not seem like 35 or so years have passed since our alma mater came tumbling down under the weight of a swinging wrecking ball to make room for this new, improved version of a Superior Courthouse that, until then, served Greater Nashua in a creaky, old (but really neat from a historian’s point of view) facility built at the turn of the 20th century.

Not surprisingly, the series of events behind this little “but where is the furniture?” snafu provided a few snickers and a chuckle or two for the government cynics among us.

Questions about furniture, like when, from whom, and how much, were still being tossed around among state lawmakers as the construction of Nashua’s new courthouse was closing in on completion.

Sometime in 1991, the legislature finally approved the $1.1 million needed for furnishings. At last, the final hurdle had been cleared. With the furniture all but on its way, state, county and local officials began studying their calendars for the long-awaited Opening Day.

But hold on, they were told. Something has come up.

It was a “wouldn’t you know it” moment wrapped in a classic case of bad timing.

Suddenly, the Nashua-based furniture supply house that was to, well, furnish the furniture, went belly-up. It wasn’t alone; economy wise, things weren’t all that great in the early 1990s.

“Even justice falls victim to the chilled economy,” my former colleague, the late Marilyn Solomon, observed in her weekly column in December 1991.

Offhand, I don’t know the name of the company that turned out to be the courthouse’s furniture contractor, but as someone who frequents the bench-lined corridors, parks himself on a courtroom bench sometimes for hours on end, and appreciates the strategic placement of the small desk and chair at the end of the second-floor corridor, I can attest to a well-done job of furniture placement.

Dean Shalhoup’s column appears weekly in The Sunday Telegraph. He may be reached at 594-1256 or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.