In the forty years after its founding by the Swiss Colonization Society, Tell City grew into a thriving community, and around 1898 its leaders built a Romanesque Revival style city hall of local bricks and limestone with a central tower. Standing 133 feet tall atop a small rise in the center of City Park Square, the building became a focal point of the community and a monument to the effective planning of the Swiss Colonization Society and the industriousness of its members who built Tell City.