Prior to the signing of the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek on September 27, 1830, this site belonged to the Choctaw Nation. Early settlers came from the Carolinas, Georgia, Tennessee, and Virginia. In 1833, a commission was appointed to organize Sumter County and choose its county seat, and the selected site was named Livingston for Edward Livingston, a prominent jurist, statesman, and Secretary of State under President Andrew Jackson. Livingston was incorporated on January 10, 1835. Its first courthouse, built of logs, stood at Spring Street and West Main, and a later frame courthouse erected on the Square in 1839 burned in 1901. The cornerstone for the present courthouse was laid on July 9, 1902. On the Courthouse Square, the Bored Well was begun in 1854, and historians say an old blind mule pulled the auger day after day until the artesian well was completed in 1857. After people began claiming the mineral water had medicinal value, Livingston became widely known as a health spa. The water stopped overflowing in 1904, when a hand pump was added, and an electric pump was installed in 1928. A wooden Chinese pagoda originally covered the well, a new brick structure was built in 1924, that building was removed for safety reasons in 1999, and the present pavilion was completed in 2005. The Bored Well again became one of Livingston's most treasured landmarks.