Here in Indiana, a typical county measures just over 389 square miles. Somehow, Ohio County only checks in at a measly eighty-six1. It’s not only the state’s smallest county, but it’s the tiniest in the entire nation! There, in Rising Sun, the oldest operating courthouse in the state administers justice to about 6,000 residents.
Indiana’s first settlements sprung up around the Ohio River. One of the earliest was Lawrenceburg, founded in 1810 as part of the burgeoning Indiana Territory. As a strategic trading post on the river with the prestigious status as the seat of Dearborn County, Lawrenceburg spent the next twenty-five years growing into a regional powerhouse.
At the time, Dearborn County measured about 391 square miles. That’d be average today, but it was enormous compared to its contemporaries. Naturally, other towns sprung up within its confines. Wilmington was laid out in 18152, and Rising Sun was founded as a seasonal flatboat stop at the remote southern portion of the county a year later3.
Those newer settlements tilted the county’s population balance away from Lawrenceburg and the state took notice. Legislation passed in 1835 demanded the county seat be relocated to Wilmington, which sat closer to the center of things. The move meant that Lawrenceburg still commanded a position of commercial prominence but no longer had the official clout to back it up.
The residents of Rising Sun were happy with the change. They’d been campaigning to get their own county for nearly twenty years but kept getting slapped back into submission by state officials. Soon after the county seat was moved, boosters hatched a plan with their counterparts in Lawrenceburg.
Rising Sun’s scheme went like this: if the residents of Lawrenceburg supported forming a new county with Rising Sun as its seat, it would absorb enough of Dearborn County’s residents to tilt the demographics back to Lawrenceburg and wrest the town’s rightful title back from Wilmington.
Lawrenceburg was all in, and the plan came to fruition in 1843 when eighty-six square miles of Dearborn County became Ohio County. Rising Sun and Lawrenceburg became county seats again! The arrangement was a win-win for everyone involved except for Wilmington. The town was abandoned.
It took officials two years to put a courthouse in Rising Sun4. Fortunately, they built it well: today, the 1845 Ohio County Courthouse is the state’s oldest in continuous use. Others have burned through two, three, four, five, or six, but Ohio County officials still maintain the courthouse used by their earliest forebears. It’s incredible.
The Greek Revival structure faces northeast towards a small commercial strip three blocks northwest of Rising Sun’s commercial core. From the front, the building’s most prominent features are its broad, tapered columns. They support a pediment and covered portico that separates the courthouse into three bays. The central portion features an unusual double staircase5.
It’d be unreasonable to expect a building to last nearly two-hundred years without some enhancements, but those made to the Ohio County Courthouse were sympathetic. When it was first built, the structure extended back four bays and measured forty feet wide by fifty feet long6. A hundred and thirty-five years later, it received an addition to the rear.
A second expansion in 2002 gave the courthouse its present L-shaped configuration and a new, gabled entryway7. Fortunately, the architects sought to replicate and complement the original structure’s Greek Revival elements. The additions don’t detract from the majesty of the building in any way as some of the most sensitive I’ve seen.
Along with structures in Paoli and South Bend, the Ohio County Courthouse is one of only three Greek Revival courthouses remaining in Indiana. A fourth technically exists in Connersville, but it was covered up by Romanesque brickwork in the early 1890s.
Although neoclassical courthouses that copied certain elements of the style popped up nearly everywhere in the early 20th century, Greek Revival courthouses were relatively uncommon. Far more “Coffee Mill” courthouses with hipped roofs and central cupolas were built during the early 1800s, like the one back in Wilmington8. That makes Ohio County’s even more of an outlier beyond its age.
The Ohio County Courthouse was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006. Aside from Montgomery County’s in Dayton, Ohio, I’ve yet to venture to any more striking example of a temple-style Greek Revival courthouse than the one near the center of Rising Sun. It’s stood for nearly two centuries! I hope it stays around for another two hundred years.
TL;DR
Ohio County (pop. 5,994, 92/92)
Rising Sun (pop. 2,226).
Built: 1845, expanded 1980, expanded 2002.
38/92 photographed.
Cost: ?
Architect: George Kyle
Style: Greek Revival
Courthouse Square: No square
Height: Two stories
Current Use: County offices and courts
Photographed: 8/23/15
Sources Cited
1 “Indiana Land area in square miles, 2010 by County” indexMundi. 2019. Web. Retrieved May 11, 2019.
2 Shaw, Archibald. History of Dearborn County, Indiana: Her People, Industries and Institutions. Indianapolis: B. F. Bowen and Company, Inc. 2015. p. 176.
3 History of Dearborn and Ohio Counties, Indiana. Chicago: F. E. Weakley & Company. 1885. p. 448.
4 Enyart, David. “Ohio County” Indiana County Courthouse Histories. ACPL Genealogy Center, 2010-2018. Web. May 11, 2018.
5 Rising Sun Historic District, Rising Sun, Ohio County, Indiana. (National Register of Historic Places). #06000935.
6 Courthouse History. Keith Vincent. 2018. Web. Retrieved May 11, 2019.
7 Indiana Landmarks (2013). Ohio County. Indianapolis. Indiana Landmarks. Retrieved May 10, 2019.
8 Masing, Milton A. Dearborn County, Indiana in Vintage Postcards. Arcadia Publishing. 1999. Print.
9 Indiana State Highway Department (1957). State Highway System of Indiana (Map). Indiana State Highway Department. OCLC 78547924. Retrieved May 11, 2019.
