Ozarks (Lake)
Versailles courthouse square anchors Morgan County
Morgan County's own history traces the courthouse story from a reconstructed log building on the Versailles square to later courthouse fires and rebuilding.
On the Versailles square, Morgan County’s courthouse story starts with a log building. In 1836, the first courthouse was bought, moved, and rebuilt on the square. A two-story brick courthouse followed in 1844, after the county had been organized on January 5, 1833 and named for Revolutionary War general Daniel Morgan.
The square kept carrying the county through harder chapters. The old courthouse burned in 1887 while a new one was under construction, and a judge’s 1889 ruling cleared the way for the present courthouse to go forward after a fight over the bond vote. That present Versailles courthouse is still the civic anchor and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
So the courthouse square is not just a pretty center of town. It is where Morgan County’s paperwork, fires, rebuilding, and public memory all stack up.
References
Where this fits: this note belongs to Morgan County. See every local note for the county on its page.