Carrollton’s courthouse (1876, James Clark Harris), one of the most intact in setting and form from the Reconstruction period occupies the center of a commercial square that still resembles the incomplete and informal development that characterized most Mississippi squares in the late nineteenth century. The cubical building presents a more severe facade than others designed by Harris, with a smooth stucco finish, pilasters with corbeled capitals, and tall narrow windows. The cupola’s bell-shaped roof provides curvilinear relief. The cross-hall interior is similarly austere, but the cornices of the second-floor courtroom feature a Harris signature decorative treatment: flattened ogee arches incised beneath classical pediments. Although Harris typically was both designer and builder for his residential projects, here he served only as the designer, and the builders were T. W. Parker and A. Larmour of Madison County. A one-story chancery clerk’s office addition (1930s) is on the northeast corner.
Facing the courthouse on the south is the parapeted, two-story, brick Merrill’s Store (c. 1860), the last survivor of a longer commercial block and now owned by the Carroll Society for the Preservation of Antiquities. On the north side, J. Z. George’s law office (c. 1838; 103–105 Washington) is a detached one-story wooden office building with minimal Greek Revival detailing on its portico and a regionally unusual saltbox form. On the east, the Carpenter Gothic Carrollton Presbyterian Church (1897; 604 Green Street) presents a variety of textured wood siding, and its corner entrance tower and pointed tripartite window provide a strong vertical emphasis.