Butler County Pennsylvania

Butler County Courthouse is located at 124 West Diamond Street, Butler PA 16001; phone: 724-285-4731.

Beginnings [1, 2]

Created on March 12, 1800 from part of Allegheny County, and named for General Richard Butler. It was attached to Allegheny County until 1803. Butler, the county seat, was laid out in 1803, incorporated as a borough on February 26, 1817, and chartered as a city on January 7, 1918.

Formed March 12, 1800; named in honor of General Richard Butler, born in York County; natural scenery is varied, with hills, knolls, and ridges, intervening valleys and broad, fertile fields, while many streams dash over rocky bottoms in all directions and flash their clear waters in the sunlight. The county is rich in old traditions. In 1753, Washington passed through over the Indian trail extending from site of Pittsburgh to Franklin, Venango County; Lafayette stopped here overnight, and many stories of hairbreadth escapes from Indians are related, among them that of Massy Harbison and her baby, who after seeing two of her children killed and scalped, almost starved for days, but finally escaped; the descendants of that baby still reside in the county. Robert Morris owned about 100,000 acres of land in this region. Chief industries, notably its large output of oil and gas, also manufactories; the Standard Steel Car Works, one of the largest plants in the United States, and the Standard Plate Glass Works.

Butler County Courthouse

The present Butler County Courthouse built in 1885 and the two previous courthouses built on the same site have played an important part in the history of the county and the community. ... Over the years the courthouse has also served as a school, center for community activities, ... and a depository for county records and artifacts. It was built from locally-quarried honey brown sandstone with color-matched mortar. This High Victorian Gothic building designed by architect James P Baily, has accents drawn from the Romanesque stiyle. The courthouse was entered onto the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. Photo from Pennsylvania Historic Museum Commission, www.arch.state.pa.us, National Register documentation collection.

1. Pennsylvania State Archives, Butler County, www.phmc.state.pa.us
2. Archambault, A. Margaretta, ed., A Guide Book of Art, Architecture, and Historic Interests in Pennsylvania, John C. Winston Company, Philadelphia, 1924