Prominently sited at the end of 4th Street, the Hettinger County Courthouse is a three-story Moderne building with a raised basement. The exterior is clad with light-colored Hebron brick and Kasota limestone. At each corner a slightly lower, shallowly projecting two-story bay gives the facade a stepped-up profile. Limestone framing around the outer bank of windows and entrance windows also contributes to the design’s verticality and geometric complexity. On the interior, the entrance vestibule, stair, and main hall are faced with marble and the courtroom is luxuriously paneled with wood. The third floor contains the jail. Construction was enabled by a PWA grant in 1934 after county residents narrowly passed a bond issue approving the federal grant. Vociferous opposition to the new courthouse was aired in newspaper editorials, suggesting that three earlier bond issues failed because voters disliked the escalated cost for the courthouse.