Susan Thrane kicks off Putnam County’s entry in her book County Courthouses of Ohio by noting that the courthouse commission’s intent was to create a structure “larger than necessary for present needs” way back in 1910. “We are not building for ourselves alone any more than the Revolutionary patriots fought for themselves 134 years ago,” officials explained. “Their blood gave us liberty today.”

“We want to give something to those who live after us. In the year A.D. 2000 may our posterity say that ‘they builded wiser than they knew¹.’”