Braxton County was formed in 1836, ten years after Sutton was incorporated, and was named for Carter Braxton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Sutton became the county seat, and the first county court met in the home of John D. Sutton. The Braxton County Court House was built in 1881-82 as a two-story brick Romanesque-style structure with a central bell tower, constructed by Wood and Atchison from plans by C.C. Kimble, with the original design concept reportedly by local resident Felix J. Baxter, and the adjacent jail was built in 1905. Sutton Historic District covers about eleven square blocks in downtown Sutton, including three blocks of Main Street still paved with brick paving stones installed in 1904, and contains examples of turn-of-the-century architecture. Sutton was first settled in 1792 by Adam O'Brien from Bath County, Virginia, and the village was originally called Newville. In 1809, John D. Sutton settled at the confluence of Granny's Creek and the Elk River and donated land for streets and the public courtyard where the court house and jail stand; over time Newville became Suttonville and in 1826 was renamed and incorporated as Sutton in honor of his land donation. Because Sutton lay on a major north-south route through the region, it became an important strategic point during the Civil War, and officers' memoirs of the 1861 Battle of Carnifex Ferry called it a most important military post in the interior. Ten thousand Union troops were deployed in and around Sutton on their way to Carnifex Ferry, including William McKinley, later President of the United States, and they stayed five nights, using the Camden Hotel as officers' quarters. Soon afterward, Confederate troops burned the Camden Hotel and most of Sutton to the ground, leaving only four homes standing after the Burning of Sutton. The town rebuilt slowly and remained a small agricultural community until the local timber industry boomed in 1890, after the 1889 opening of the Pardee and Curtin Lumber Company began a timber boom that lasted about thirty years and quickly made Sutton a commercial center with banks, hotels, and shops; many historic buildings and grand homes in town date from 1890 to 1950.