Built in conjunction with the county's second courthouse of 1867, the jail was designed by the Pittsburgh firm well known for its schools and institutional buildings. The two-story brick building has a slightly projecting central bay with a Palladian window on the second story above a double-doored arched entrance. Flanking it are paired round-arched windows with prominent voussoirs and keystones. In the mid-1970s, the cell block was removed from the rear and the building converted to offices.
Adjacent to the east is carpenter Hugh Bingham's house of 1812, a two-story, three-bay red brick house with its gable to the side. Bingham's son, John Amor Bingham, had a national career as a judge. The Old Stone Jail (107 E. Venango Street), built by Thomas Templeton in 1810, is a five-bay, two-story building one block north of the courthouse square. It was converted to a hotel in 1868