A Cornerstone at 125: The Van Buren County Courthouse

One hundred twenty-five years ago today, Paw Paw gathered to build something lasting.

On September 2, 1901, a crowd estimated at 8,000 to 10,000 people filled the streets of Paw Paw to watch the cornerstone of the new Van Buren County Courthouse set into place. Fraternal orders and Civil War veterans marched through town, and the Grand Master of Michigan’s Masons laid the stone. A year and a half later, on February 23, 1903, the finished courthouse was dedicated. It has stood at the center of Paw Paw ever since.

The building was designed by Jackson architect Claire Allen in the Classical Revival style. If it looks familiar to anyone who has spent time in Hillsdale, there is a reason. Allen designed the Hillsdale County Courthouse first, completed in 1899, then reused nearly the same design for ours two years later. The two courthouses are, in effect, sisters.

Inside, the courthouse is finished with classical murals, a sweeping main staircase, and a rotunda beneath the clock tower, with the county’s second-floor courtroom set under a high, curved ceiling and dark woodwork. The Sheldon and Oradell Rupert Memorial Clock was added to the tower in 1986.

More than a century later, this is no museum piece. The building remains in use and a center of public life.

The Old Courthouse

There is a quieter piece of history just outside. Before this courthouse rose, the county’s first courthouse, built in the 1840s, stood on this same ground. Rather than being torn down, it was moved. Over the years it served as a feed store and, during the Great Depression, a youth center, before becoming the building it is today: the Village of Paw Paw’s Village Hall. Its original footprint is marked in Courtyard Park by posts set on concrete pads, arranged in the shape of Van Buren County.

There is a quieter piece of history just outside. Before this courthouse rose, the county’s first courthouse, built in the 1840s, stood on this same ground. Rather than being torn down, it was moved. Over the years it served as a feed store and, during the Great Depression, a youth center, before becoming the building it is today: the Village of Paw Paw’s Village Hall. Its original footprint is marked in Courtyard Park by posts set on concrete pads, arranged in the shape of Van Buren County.

For a great many families here, the courthouse holds a more personal history as well. It is where couples have exchanged vows and begun their lives together, generation after generation. For them, this is not only where the county does its business. It is where their own stories started.

One hundred twenty-five years on, the old courthouse is still standing, still working, and still ours. Happy anniversary to a Van Buren County landmark.