In the late 1790s, General Benjamin Whiteman built near this site one of the first log cabins in Alpha, the first settlement in what would become Beavercreek Township of Greene County. Later owned by Whiteman's father-in-law, Owen Davis, and leased as a tavern to Peter Borders, the cabin became Greene County's first courthouse. Twenty-five feet square, it had one room below and a chamber above used as family sleeping quarters, reached by a small ladder through a hole in the ceiling. Built of burr oak logs, it had a clapboard roof held in place by long poles, one door, one window, and a huge fireplace with an outside chimney made of sticks, stones, and clay. The first proceedings of the associate judges of the court of common pleas were held there on Tuesday, May 10, 1803. Whiteman was one of the first three associate judges. The court organized Greene County by laying out township lines and creating a new township named Beaver Creek, later Beavercreek, and it also determined the number of elected justices of the peace for each township and arranged for the election of a county sheriff. The final court proceedings there took place in June 1804, after which Xenia became the county seat. The building was later moved twice, last served as a boarding house for workers at nearby Harbine Mill, and was torn down in the mid 1850s.