Settlers began trickling into the Bowling Green area around 1790, and the Moore brothers donated two acres for a public square where carpenters built a log courthouse and jail around 1798 to help establish local government. The square became the center of legal, business, and social life, where food and liquor were served, justice was administered, and merchants sold goods to a growing population. As the town grew, a brick two-story courthouse replaced the original log building. Although no battle took place in Bowling Green during the Civil War, some commercial buildings around the square burned, and the town emerged from the occupation of two armies in ragged condition. In 1869 a larger courthouse was built a block to the west, and the square was officially designated Fountain Square Park with the addition of a limestone fountain. After the original fountain deteriorated, the city ordered the current iron fountain from the J.L. Mott Ironworks of New York in 1881, topping it with Hebe, the goddess of youth, and surrounding it with four iron statues from Roman mythology: Ceres, Pomona, Melpomane, and Flora. Many historic buildings around the square remain, including the three-story Younglove, built in 1837 at State and Main Streets, and in the 1980s property owners, government officials, and preservationists worked together to protect and revitalize the district through historic designation and rehabilitation. Today the area continues as a center of concerts, art walks, festivals, theater events, shops, and restaurants that draw residents and tourists.