Charlotte's Courthouse Square

The center of Charlotte is a real town square, and on it stands a building most county seats lost long ago: the original 1885 Eaton County Courthouse, a grand Renaissance Revival pile of red brick and stone with a “Lady of Justice” up top. The county heard its last cases there in 1976 and moved to a modern complex a mile north — but instead of tearing the old courthouse down, the community saved it.

Today the 1885 courthouse is the Courthouse Square Museum, with restored courtrooms and offices and exhibits on Eaton County history filling the upper floors. The square also keeps an 1873 sheriff’s residence, a Second Empire building with an attached jail at its northwest corner. A short walk away, in Bennett Park, stands the county’s very first courthouse — the tiny 1845 frame building, moved off the square in 1872 and relocated to the park in 1983. With that 1845 original, the grand 1885 building, and the modern courthouse still in use up the road, Eaton is the only county in Michigan that has held onto all three of its courthouses. A local nonprofit runs the historic buildings and fills the season with concerts, festivals, and special events on the lawn.

The Courthouse Square Museum is at 100 West Lawrence Avenue in downtown Charlotte.