Allen County Courthouse (Ohio)

The Allen County Courthouse is an historic courthouse building located at the corner of North Main Street & East North Street in Lima, Ohio, United States. On July 24, 1974, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.HistoryAllen County was formed in 1820 and Lima was selected as the county seat. The first courthouse was a simple log structure consisting of two floors, a small hipped roof and a single chimney. The courthouse served the county until 1840 when the county realized the space was not adequate for the growing population. A contest was announced and seventeen bids were submitted. The contract was awarded to Orlando Boughton and was designed in the Classical Revival style. The amount was $13,325 and construction was underway.The courthouse was two-stories tall and was built out of brick and stone. Pilasters lined the facade between the long windows with dark shutters. The entrance was framed with four fluted Doric columns supporting a portico. A square drum rose from the roof and supported large rectangular windows capped with a dome ending in a weather vane. The tower contained a large bell which rang periodically through the years, including the 14th of April in 1865 in honor of the slain president, Abraham Lincoln.The courthouse standing today is the county's third. It was built between 1881-1884 at a cost of $360,000 by architect George H. Maetzel. The courthouse is designed in the popular Second Empire style.