Read time: 6 min.

I’d only made it to Ohio’s western courthouses before a cousin’s wedding took me to the West Virginia mountains. The best way to get there from here was I-70, and I just had to stop at a string of courthouses on my way back to mark my path across the state. One was Muskingum County’s in Zanesville, Ohio. The striking structure was just visible from the interstate, but monumental up close. 

Muskingum County’s name likely stems from the Shawnee word mshkikwam, meaning “swampy ground¹.” Another theory traces it to the Lenape word Machkigen, which describes a type of thorn bush². A handful of other colorful folk translations have circulated over the years, too³, but the truth is, no one really knows where the word came from. At any rate, Muskingum County was formed in 1803. Zanesville was established as its county seat the following year⁴. 

At first, Muskingum County officials met at Davis Harvey’s tavern, which stood at the corner of Main and Third Streets⁵. Courts later moved to James Herron’s cabin about a hundred feet south of Main⁶ until 1808, when the first proper courthouse was built. A two-story frame structure measuring 20×55 feet, it was erected in conjunction with a jail, debtor’s prison, and sheriff’s house for $480⁷.

The following year, a second courthouse was built in front of the frame one, but not because the county needed it. It was due to politics, pure and simple! At the time, Ohio’s capital, Chillicothe, sat far from the state’s population center and Zanesville’s civic leaders spotted an opportunity: if they could offer state officials a grand new building fit for a capitol, maybe the title would move their way⁸. 

John McIntire’s Zanesville Courthouse Company set to work right away and built a stately $7,500 courthouse inspired by Philadelphia’s Independence Hall⁹. Zanesville only wound up serving as the capital of Ohio for two years, but its statehouse remained in service as a courthouse after the state vacated the property. The building received a two-story brick addition for $3,642 in 1833¹⁰. 

Despite its expansion, the need for a new courthouse began to become apparent as early as before the Civil War. In 1858, the Zanesville City Times said its storage areas were “damp, moldy places without any convenience¹¹.” In 1869, the Zanesville Courier described the structure as featuring “stove pipes hung about from room to room, and from stove to flue, as thick as cobwebs in a deserted rookery…In the clerk’s private room the stove pipe hugs the dry pine stairway at a distance of a few inches…the cases and valuable files of the clerk’s blister and smell when this apparatus is half heated for comfort on a wintery day¹².” 

Three months after the Courier article was published, the courthouse burned after piping from a coal stove indeed ignited the building’s roof¹³. Officials moved to a nearby Odd Fellows Hall, but it was clear that a new building was needed. Henry E. Myer, a Buffalo native ultimately responsible for five Ohio courthouses, was hired to design a replacement for “Old 1809¹⁴.” 

Myer’s $221,657 landmark was completed in 1877. The courthouse faces south, with a three-story façade of buff-colored brick and locally-quarried stone¹⁵. A single-story portico with four stately columns anchors the main entrance and supports a balcony that stretches across the second floor. Just above, a central arch is flanked by twin arched windows topped by decorative stonework and flanking windows.

A patterned mansard roof -complete with dormers and small corner towers- ties the whole design together. Up top, a tower with columned porticos, pedimented crowns, and a clock stands sixty feet above the building’s roofline¹⁶. Old 1809’s cornerstone was also incorporated into the new structure.

I’m not sure how tall the Muskingum County Courthouse rises in total, but the landmark can easily be seen from I-70 as it crosses through town. The building’s silhouette has changed over the past thirty years after the completion of a modern Hall of Justice and Law Administration Building, but they sit far enough back from the historic structure to have little impact on its heft. 

From its early days hosting court sessions in a frontier tavern to its bid for the state capital, Zanesville has always punched above its weight. Henry Myer’s 1877 design captured that same spirit in stone and slate, balancing refinement with authority.

Standing before it now, with the bustle of downtown Zanesville and the hum of I-70 in the distance, it’s easy to see why this courthouse endures as more than just a seat of justice. The building is a reminder of the county’s determination as a place where civic pride, history, and hope for the future still meet under the same clock tower that’s watched over the city for nearly a century and a half.

TL;DR
Muskingum County (pop. 86,852 31/88)
Zanesville (pop. 24,916)
Built: 1877
Cost: $221,657 (about $6.9 million today).
Architect: Henry E Myer
Style: Second Empire
Courthouse Square: Lancaster Square
Height: Three stories
Current Use: County courts and offices
Photographed: 4/23/2018

Sources Cited
1 Mahr, A. C. (1957). Indiana River and Place Names in Ohio. Ohio History. Ohio Historical Society [Columbus]. Newsletter.
2 Lenape Dictionary (2000, October). Archived from the original on July 27, 2004. Web. 
3 “mus” Lenape Talking Dictionary. Archived from the original on March 15, 2012. Web. 
4 Deacon, J. “Muskingum County”. American Courthouses. 2008. Web. Retrieved November 2, 2025.
5 History of Muskingum County Ohio (1881). J.F. Everhart & Company. Book. 
6 Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Muskingum County, Ohio (1892). The Goodspeed Publishing Company [Chicago]. Book.
7 (See footnote 6). 
8 Muskingum County Courthouse History (n.d.). Muskingum County, Ohio [Zanesville]. Web. Retrieved November 4, 2025. 
9 (See footnote 8).
10 (See footnote 4). 
11 (See footnote 8).
12 (See footnote 8). 
13 Henry E Myer (n.d.). Cleveland Architects. Cleveland Landmarks Commission [Cleveland]. Web. Retrieved November 4, 2025. 
14 (See footnote 8). 
15 Ohio Courthouses (n.d.). The Supreme Court of Ohio & The Ohio Judicial System [Columbus]. Web. Retrieved November 5, 2025.
16 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Zanesville, Muskingum County, Ohio (1950). Sanborn Map Company. Web. Retrieved November 5, 2025.