The first Frederick County courthouse, a log building, was replaced with this imposing two-story brick Greek Revival building. Designed by a well-known Baltimore architect, it was the first county courthouse in the state to have been designed by a non-Virginian. After the First Battle of Winchester in 1862, the building and its yard housed Union prisoners and, after the Third Battle of Winchester in 1864, Confederate prisoners. The courthouse has a pedimented portico with four massive columns and a two-stage square cupola topped by a fish weathervane. Now a museum, the building's exhibits include Civil War artifacts.