Editing Montgomery County, Indiana (section)

===Courthouses===
Montgomery County's first courthouse was ordered on June 28, 1823, to be made "of good hewed logs... to be twenty-six feet long; two stories high, lower story nine feet from floor to joist; upper to be seven feet to roof". Eliakam Ashton won the contract to construct the building on Crawfordville's Main Street; he finished it in August 1824 at a cost of $295. In 1825 a contract was issued to Henry Ristine to cut trees and pick up chips from under the courthouse so that "hogs would not find a comfortable place in which to make their beds".

A more substantial structure was ordered in 1831, the contract for its construction being awarded to John Hughes for $3,420. The result was completed in 1833, a two-story, 40x40 foot brick building surmounted by a cupola, later supplemented by separate one-story buildings erected to the north and east as wings of the main structure. The building stood on the current public square until 1875, when it was removed.<ref>{{cite book|last=Bowen|first=A. W.|title=History of Montgomery County, Indiana|publisher=A. W. Bowen & Co.|year=1913|location=Indianapolis IN|chapter=Organization and County Government}}</ref>

The third and current Montgomery County courthouse was the first courthouse designed by George W. Bunting of [[Indianapolis, Indiana|Indianapolis]]; it is one of six of his Indiana courthouses still standing. Bunting had served as a colonel in the Confederacy during the Civil War before establishing himself in Indianapolis; General [[Lew Wallace]], who was on the Union side during the War and was a resident of Montgomery County, spoke at the dedication of the cornerstone in 1875. The building was constructed by McCormack and Sweeney of [[Columbus, Indiana]] at a cost of $150,000, and was completed in 1876.<ref>{{cite book|last=Counts|first=Will|author2=Jon Dilts|title=The 92 Magnificent Indiana Courthouses|publisher=Indiana University Press|year=1991|location=Bloomington IN|isbn=978-0-253-33638-5|pages=114–115}}</ref>

The cornerstone contains an embedded copper box of memorable items, including the key to the old courthouse and a [[Henry VIII of England|Henry VIII]] coin.<ref>{{cite book|last=Riggs|first=Constance Kakavecos|title=Montgomery County Remembers|publisher=Montgomery County Historical Society|year=1976|location=Crawfordsville IN|pages=67–70}}</ref>