Editing Mountain Home, Arkansas (section)

===The Courthouse===
When Baxter County was incorporated on March 24, 1873, Mountain Home was named as the county seat. Court was held in a local store and prisoners were held in the homes of respected citizens until a proper courthouse could be built. A former boardinghouse was purchased for the purpose, but was deemed unfit for county business during the renovation process, so a new wood-frame building was built on a donated lot in the middle of the town square. This building burned to the ground in the 1890s and was replaced with a stone courthouse. It was suspected that an arsonist set fire to the building due to the location of the start of the fire and the timing. In just a few days, the fireproof safe would have been completed and all county records, including indictments, would have been protected from fire.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Burning of Baxter County Courthouse, Feb 23rd, 1890 |journal=The Baxter County History |date=1976 |volume=2 |issue=1 |page=14 |url=http://www.baxtercountyhistory.org/Images/Quarterly%20PDFs/BCHv2n1.pdf |access-date=January 30, 2020}}</ref>  In 1912, a local town, [[Cotter, Arkansas|Cotter]], was booming while growth in Mountain Home had slowed, and there was talk of moving the County Seat to the riverfront town. Mountain Home added a third floor to their existing court house due to an Arkansas law that prevented county seats from being moved away from a three-story building. The current court house was completed in 1943 and is still in use today.<ref>{{cite web |title=Baxter County History |url=http://www.baxtercounty.org/history.php |website=Baxter County Government |publisher=Baxter County Government |access-date=January 30, 2020}}</ref>