Crenshaw County was established from five existing counties in 1866. Its first courthouse and county seat were originally in Rutledge. After the 1893 election, the county seat moved to its present location. The first courthouse there burned on March 4, 1897. A second courthouse, completed in 1898 and facing the Bricken Law Building on 4th Street, stood until 1955, when it was razed and replaced with the present-day building. The county is named in honor of Judge Anderson Crenshaw, a prominent Luverne citizen who was appointed to Alabama's first Supreme Court.