Built only one year after the county was carved out of Greene and Jackson counties in 1910, the courthouse occupies a square one block off Main Street’s commercial strip. McCrary and Slater of Mobile designed the neoclassical revival red pressed brick building, which is distinguished by an octagonal dome on a tall fenestrated drum, a monumental pedimented Ionic portico, and a heavy modillioned cornice. Its original red tile roofing was replaced with asphalt shingles in 1986, but the courthouse retains its highly decorated encaustic tile floors.
Incorporated in 1901 on the Gulf, Mobile and Northern Railroad, Lucedale initially relied on pine products. After 1914, when Gregory M. Luce converted his K&C Lumber Company to Luce Farms on cutover land east of town, the economy diversified with commercial nurseries, vegetable farms, and canneries.