Scott County was formed by the Indiana General Assembly in 1820, and Lexington was selected as the county seat. Lexington had been laid out in 1810, its plat was recorded in 1813, and the town was incorporated in 1816. The first Scott County courthouse was built there in 1821 by Daniel P. Falkner, with specifications calling for brick construction, a hipped roof with poplar shingles, and a twenty-foot cupola. Efforts to move the county seat to a more central location were made in 1823, 1839, and 1840. A petition to the county commissioners in 1870 succeeded, Scottsburg was platted in 1871 as the new county seat, and the actual move took place in 1874. After that, the courthouse served as a school from 1874 to 1889, and it was then demolished.