Copiah’s neoclassical revival, yellow brick courthouse originally had a domed clock tower, but this was removed in 1933, leaving the octagonal lantern. Gordon, then based in Fort Worth, here developed what his biographer Chris Meister has called his “Copiah Plan,” which he used in at least six other courthouses, including in Wilkinson County (ND1). A small light-filled octagonal rotunda is surrounded by offices, and the elliptical two-story courtroom at the rear is reflected on the exterior with curved walls. Semicircular entrance porticos with full-height Composite columns are set in the angles of the cross plan, one on each side of the pedimented front. Flat-roofed one-story office wings of yellow brick added in 1953 obscure the clarity of Gordon’s plan.
R. H. Hunt designed a small-town version of his temple-front Galloway United Methodist Church (JM17) for the Ionic porticoed First Baptist Church (1926) across the street at 151 Caldwell.