The Coshocton County Courthouse, designed in Second Empire style, is a historic courthouse building located at 349 Main Street in Coshocton, Ohio. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on 1973-05-22.HistoryCoshocton County was established in 1811 with the county seat placed at Coshocton. The courts first met in Colonel Charles Williams Tavern and paid the owner $300 a year for rent. The county found this amount too large for the budget and instead turned to another location, a building owned by Wilson McGowan. The courts remained in this location until 1824, when an actual courthouse was built.The courthouse was located in the central business district on a landscaped public square, which is still the current site. The building cost almost $2,000 to construct and furnish and was two-stories tall. A central belltower crowned the building and contained a bell that would also be used in the next courthouse.The 1824 courthouse was showing its age and use by a growing population. The county officials were soon looking for plans for a new courthouse. These plans were drawn up by the architectural firm of Carpenter & Williams from Meadville, Pennsylvania in the Second Empire style with some Italianate touches. (From the extreme similarity in architectural form it appears that Carpenter & Williams drew on the 1862 building plans of Chapman Hall—on the campus of today's University of Mount Union in Alliance, Ohio—which was completed in 1864.) The final cost was $100,000 but has remained virtually unchanged since it was finished in 1875.
