Gratiot County Courthouse

The courthouse in Ithaca, Michigan, has stood at the center of Gratiot County government since nineteen oh two. The county itself was laid out in eighteen thirty-one but remained almost entirely unsettled until the eighteen forties, and the town of Ithaca became the county seat only after an earlier settlement renamed itself. The courthouse was designed by Jackson-based architect Claire Allen in the Neoclassical style, faced in sandstone, and features a tall central clock tower with a dome and cupola visible for miles across the flat farmland.

A construction dispute halted the project briefly after the cornerstone was laid in nineteen hundred, but the building opened in nineteen oh two and has served the county ever since. It has been on the National Register of Historic Places since nineteen seventy-six.