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Buildings

The first courthouse in the country was built in 1708, in Queenstown, Maryland where it still stands as a one-room wooden structure.  The town designated it as historical site.  Before courthouses were built, official city business was conducted in churches or taverns.  In the eighteenth and nineteenth century, the courthouses served multiple purposes for the community.  Meetings, debates, speeches, and political events were routinely held in the courthouse that had not yet evolved into what its primary purpose is today: a house of justice.  (Read more...)