The Elk County commissioners surveyed nearby courthouses and decided to emulate Milton Earl Beebe's design for Warren County (
WA1). They hired the contractor from Warren County, J. P. Marston of Maine, to build Ridgway's courthouse. His interpretation, while generally faithful to Beebe's original design, places the clock face closer to the base of the tower and opens the belfry at the top. The mansard-roofed building, with square-headed windows on the first story and round-arched windows above, is constructed of brick with stone corner quoins and bracketed cornice. Each elevation has a central projecting bay punctuated by a pediment at the cornice line. There is a modern red brick, three-story addition of 1970 at the rear. As a whole, the building conveys the solemnity befitting a courthouse, which here is surrounded by a green lawn and faces a handsome block of commercial buildings from the same era.