Adair County's first courthouse was completed on July 15, 1843, on the northwest corner of Harrison and Elson Streets, a low brick building that reportedly cost $1,000. By 1852, the county built a second courthouse on the square in Kirksville in the Shelbyville type square plan, with the courthouse in the middle of two sets of parallel streets around the perimeter, offices on the first floor, a courtroom on the second floor, and a cupola on the roof; reportedly costing $2,350, it played an integral part in the Battle of Kirksville on August 6, 1862. After that courthouse burned on April 12, 1865, the courthouse square became known as The Park, and from 1865 to 1898 county officials worked in rented rooms on or near the square while bond issues in 1872, 1891, 1892, and 1896 failed to secure a new courthouse. In 1897, a $50,000 county bond issue finally passed, and Kirsch & Company of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, designed a three-story courthouse of light blue Ohio sandstone under the personal supervision of Robert G. Kirsch. The building reflected H.H. Richardson Romanesque influences, with broad arches, squat column clusters, roughfaced stone masonry, massed hip roofs, and an ornate clock tower topped by an eight-foot Statue of Justice visible for miles. Its clock faces were at first unenclosed, allowing pigeons to land on the hands and making the correct time a county-wide joke, but the faces were later enclosed and the clock became dependable until its removal in 1949 because of its weight. On November 6, 1897, Anderson & Menke received the contract for $46,675, though the actual cost came close to $60,000; the cornerstone was laid on May 2, 1898, the county court received the building on February 24, 1899, and county offices moved in on March 31, 1899. For seventy years hitching posts surrounded the square, a watering fountain served animals, and two wells on the courthouse lawn supplied water to storekeepers and nearby residents. The Adair County Courthouse is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.