This Reconstruction-era courthouse, one of four surviving in the state, replaced William Nichols’s 1850 Greek Revival building that burned in 1864. Oates’s only other known work in Mississippi is the Madison County Jail (JM6) in Canton, where he also partnered with builder Valentine Werner. The courthouse’s classical proportions and symmetrical massing combine with round-arched windows and modillions. A central domed cupola features an E. Howard four-faced clock. The courtroom occupies the upper story, which is treated as a piano nobile and is elaborated with a pedimented frontispiece.
A 1931 renovation updated the building’s systems and courtroom; later, austere Tuscan capitals replaced the portico’s original Corinthian capitals. Decell’s three-story rear addition is a Brutalist design in concrete of contrasting solids and voids and upper floors cantilevered over the sidewalk.