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Courthouse

The first courthouse in Ringgold County was a 14 foot square log building built in 1856. (Some of our earliest record books date fromcourthouse 1855. Could they have been in that Building?) The first supplies purchased for the new government seat included 6 loads of wood at $.80 per load, 40 pounds of candles costing $11.40 and two boxes of envelopes at $3.50. Disaster in the form of a cyclone wind struck the building and the logs and records blew in all directions. Some were never recovered.

In 1859 the county built a new, larger, better frame building. It was on the east side of the square approximately where Dr. Lawheads office now stands. This building served Ringgold County for about 25 years. Then in 1884 a large brick building was completed from bricks made and fired in this county. It stood in the center of the courthouse square. The cost of this courthouse was $42,000. It stood in a beautiful grove of trees and in a lawn of bluegrass. The building was 77.5x 98 feet. The roof was 50 feet from the ground and the tower 102 feet.

About four years later the old frame courthouse caught fire and was destroyed on Thanksgiving night.

The new courthouse lasted about forty years. Inferior brick and lack of drain tiles caused such large cracks that it was condemned as unsafe in 1921.