Along Lakeside Avenue at the north end of the Cleveland Mall, the Cuyahoga County Courthouse stretches in front of you, a Beaux Arts building in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. Completed in 1912 as the fifth courthouse in Cuyahoga County, it was constructed by the firm of Lehman & Schmitt as part of the Cleveland Group Plan of 1903, and it was listed on the National Register along with the mall district in 1975.
Look closely and you can read a century of civic ambition. Cuyahoga County was established in 1807 with the county seat "still in the air." The county placed a temporary seat in Cleveland, and courts met in various taverns and inns while waiting for a courthouse. The very first courthouse, designed and built by Levi Johnson, was completed in 1813: a simple Federal style stone structure, five bays wide and two piles deep, with doors at the center and the right corner of the facade. A rectangular window sat between those doors with a smaller square window to the left of the central door; five rectangular windows lit the second floor, and a pitched roof was framed by brick chimneys.
Notice the sweep of the Mall and the line of buildings along Lakeside Avenue.