Garrett County was established on December 4, 1872, after a public vote by residents of Western Maryland, when Governor William Pinkney Whyte proclaimed a new county from the westernmost portion of Allegany County. Named for John Work Garrett, president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, the county then held a contest among Oakland, Grantsville, Deer Park, McHenry, and Accident to choose a county seat, and Oakland was selected on March 10, 1874. Continued conflict and limited finances kept county commissioner and circuit court sessions meeting at the Glades Hotel and other sites in town until October 14, 1876, when county commissioners authorized construction of a courthouse and jail. Messrs. Burton and Bush erected the buildings for about $15,000, using approximately 300,000 handmade bricks from a kiln established a few blocks south of the site. Work on the courthouse began on April 11, 1877, was completed in September, and the county commissioners held their first meeting there on October 4, 1877. The modest two-story courthouse served Garrett County for thirty-one years until a new courthouse was commissioned in 1907, with the contract awarded on May 12, 1907, to W. A. Liller of Keyser, West Virginia, on a bid of $60,962; work began in May 1907 and finished in November 1908. The original courthouse was later enlarged and used as Oakland High School until 1953, then as offices for the Garrett County Board of Education for a number of years, before it was torn down in 2002. It stood one block north, at the northeast corner of Fourth and Green Streets.