In 1873, John Lane Buell exposed one of the richest deposits of iron ore in the world, a discovery known as the Menominee Iron Range that led to the area’s development and the creation of Dickinson County in 1891. The last of Michigan’s eighty-three counties to be organized, it was named for Donald M. Dickinson, a prominent Detroit attorney and postmaster general in the first administration of President Grover Cleveland from 1885 to 1889. Three of Michigan’s largest iron mines were located in Iron Mountain, which had abundant water power and service from two major railroads, making it a center of commerce and distribution for the range and the natural location of the county seat after organization. The Richardsonian Romanesque courthouse, erected in 1896-97 of rock-faced brick trimmed with Portage Entry sandstone, was designed by James E. Clancy, a locally recognized architect who specialized in planning public buildings on the Menominee Iron Range. County offices opened there only five years after Dickinson County was created by act of the Michigan State Legislature. The jail, designed to complement the larger structure, originally contained thirty-four cells for male prisoners, two wards for juvenile and female prisoners on the first floor, and the sheriff’s quarters on the first and second floors.