Fairfield County Courthouse
The courts held session in leased locations including a log schoolhouse in Lancaster, then known as New Lancaster. The county finally received approval to build a courthouse from the newly formed state of Ohio in 1803, and construction began in 1806. The courthouse was finished in 1807 and was a two-story rectangular brick building located in the center of Broad Street at the northern edge of Main Street.
Space was an issue for the county in 1858, and the county commissioners purchased land on the corner of Main and High Streets for that purpose. The commissioners ordered a vote to determine if a levy would pass for the construction of a new courthouse. The records of this vote were lost but the issue was not heard from for a while. The county issued a contract in 1861 to David Cowden to enlarge the 1807 courthouse. A new roof was placed, iron shutters were hung and several remodels to add offices were accomplished within the next two years, but it didn’t take into consideration of the growing population for the next few years.
The commissioners in a stroke of intuition had the public lot leased, cleared and converted into a temporary field. The time came in 1866 when the courthouse was condemned and a proposition was made to the Ohio General Assembly for authorization of $100,000 to build a new courthouse. The next year the old courthouse was razed and the courts were held in the First German Reformed Church on West Church Street. The approval from the Assembly came in 1867 and construction on the public plot began soon thereafter. The construction was completed in 1872 and came in at a total of over $138,000.
~ taken from Wikipedia.Org ~