Named for General Zebulon Pike, who was killed in the War of 1812, Pike County was organized in February 1815. Commissioners established a county seat by accepting a conveyance of 40 acres from Elisha Fitch on May 12, 1815, and the new seat was named Piketon. In 1816 they let a contract for the construction of a courthouse and jail, and a fine two story courthouse with brick laid in Flemish bond was finished in 1819. A fire destroyed some county courthouse offices on October 9, 1844, but the repaired courthouse remained the seat of county government until 1861; it is now part of the Piketon Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974, and limestone headers above the windows bear the names of county government offices. At the urging of Waverly businessman James Emmitt, State Representative Shedrick Shaw petitioned the Ohio General Assembly in 1860 to move the county seat from Piketon to Waverly, touching off a bitter political battle that continued through the early 1860s. Waverly's supporters promised, among other inducements, to build a new courthouse there free of charge, and after state law enabled the change in February 1861, voters chose in October to move county government to Waverly by a margin of 310 votes. When the promised courthouse was not built, another bill in 1864 sought to return the county seat to Piketon, prompting Waverly's advocates to act; the courthouse in Waverly was finally built and deeded to the Pike County Commissioners on December 8, 1866.