Allen County Courthouse
Courthouse Sq., Lima, OHBuilt 1881-1884 the Allen County Courthouse is a good example of a Second Empire-style Ohio county courthouse. It was designed by architect George H. Maetzel, who designed several of Ohio's finest extant courthouses. While it is not Maetzel's finest building, it is extremely significant as the best remaining architectural example of the period 1880-1900 in Lima, Ohio.
Allen County was formed on April 1, 1820, from a portion of western Ohio Indian lands. The county was named for Colonel Allen, a soldier of the War of 1812. Lima was laid out in 1831 as the county seat but was then unnamed. Legend has it that the people who first settled in the town area placed several suggestions for a town name in a hat, and Lima was drawn. Lima was incorporated in 1842.
At first, the county remained under the legal jurisdiction of neighboring Mercer County until courts could be organized in Lima. The first courthouse was located in the center of town in the public square. It was a frame structure built circa 1835. It served the county until the 1870's when it was decided by the commissioners that a new courthouse would be desirable.
George H. Maetzel was chosen to be the architect of the new Allen County Courthouse. Allen County was its own general contractor, and the courthouse was built at a cost of $213, 168. Adjacent to the courthouse was a matching jail (razed during the 1950s), built at a cost of about $120,000.
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1974.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.