Coshocton County Courthouse
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Coshocton County Courthouse
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Rear of the courthouse
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| Location | Courthouse Sq., Coshocton, Ohio |
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| Coordinates | 40°16′27″N 81°51′59″W / 40.27417°N 81.86639°WCoordinates: 40°16′27″N 81°51′59″W / 40.27417°N 81.86639°W |
| Built | 1873 |
| Architect | Carpenter & Williams |
| Architectural style | Second Empire |
| NRHP Reference # | 73001402 |
| Added to NRHP | May 22, 1973 |
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.
Coshocton 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.
The courthouse is constructed of red brick with stone quoins. The main building is a rectangular base with a projected bay with a central projected tower. The first floor windows are long rectangles with decorative mouldings and the second floor windows are long arched windows. The mansard roof rests on a decorative entablature with dormers and white trim.
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