Florence County was formed in 1882 from portions of Marinette and Oconto counties, and in May 1889 the county supervisors accepted plans submitted by James E. Clancy for a courthouse and retained him to supervise its construction. Completed in eight months at a total cost of $28,282.83, the courthouse and jail were built in 1889, and both are listed on the State and National Registers of Historic Places. The courthouse was a 40 foot high Romanesque Revival building of Wisconsin sandstone with blue limestone trimming, a high pitched roof, round turrets, arched doors and windows, and a 65 foot tower. Changes in the last century included the addition of a vestibule to the original entrance in 1921, removal of the tower in 1941 because of deterioration, an east-side addition in 1963 for the sheriff's department and a small courtroom, and a 10,000 square foot expansion to the south in 1994 with an elevator and additional office space. Clancy also designed a small jail with two steel cells for men and an iron cell for women, made by the Diebold Safe and Lock Co of Ohio. The county stopped using the jail in the 1930's, and after years of disuse an exterior renovation was completed in 2006 through the efforts of the Jeffris Family Foundation, Florence County Board, Florence Utilities and the Florence County Historical Society, preserving one of the two remaining examples of this type of jail in Wisconsin.