The Isabella County courthouse, completed in 1877, was then the county’s only large public building. Its construction was financed after I.A. Fancher of Mt. Pleasant, serving as a state senator in the mid-1870s, discovered that Isabella County had been shorted $10,486.76 when Clare County was separated and given its own county government. He introduced a bill restoring the funds, and after it passed, the Isabella County Board of Supervisors set aside the money for a new courthouse. The original courthouse contract was let for $13,275.05, with the remaining cost raised through $1,000 in taxes and about $2,000 in citizen contributions. The second floor held the courtroom, which was also used by the Board of Supervisors and featured a photo gallery of members of the Isabella County Bar Association from early times onward. The first floor housed the County Clerk, Treasurer, and Register of Deeds, while the basement contained the Drain Commissioner, County School Superintendent, County Surveyor, and the Friend of the Court. During the 95 years the building stood, the courthouse square was a center of community life, including Decoration Day readings of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address from the courthouse steps, patriotic band selections, a band stand off Chippewa Street, shaded benches where friends gathered, and horses along the south edge of the square that gave rise to the name Jockey Alley.