This corner was the site of the log residence of Harrison County's first clerk, George F. Pope, in 1809. In 1811, Harrison County bought the property for use as a temporary courthouse until a stone courthouse on the public square was completed in the summer of 1816. From 1813 to 1816, the log structure served jointly as Harrison County's courthouse on the hill and as the capitol building for the Indiana Territory. In June 1816, forty-three delegates from thirteen of the fifteen counties assembled here to write Indiana's first constitution, then, seeking relief from the summer heat, walked eighty yards west on High Street to finish their work near the spreading limbs of the Constitution Elm.