Est. 1897 · National Register of Historic Places · Renaissance Revival Architecture · Indiana County Government History
Cannelton needed a permanent courthouse. For four decades, county business had been conducted from a repurposed sandstone schoolhouse built in 1855, an arrangement that worked tolerably until the 1890s when the floor of the second-story courtroom shifted under the accumulated weight of spectators during a large trial. That structural failure prompted action.
Residents of Cannelton took an unusual step: they collectively raised $30,000 — roughly $867,000 in today's value — and commissioned a proper courthouse, donating the completed structure to Perry County for one dollar. Louisville architect John Bacon Hutchings designed a 2.5-story Renaissance Revival building in pressed yellow brick and Bedford limestone, notable for its deliberate rejection of the local sandstone used throughout the rest of the town. The design featured a Greek-cross footprint, dual front staircases converging at a central entrance beneath a decorative balcony, pilasters, tall ornamental windows, and a shallow hipped roof with bracketed cornice. Construction was completed in 1897.
The courthouse served Perry County for nearly a century, functioning as the center of local government, legal proceedings, and civic life. In 1994, when the county seat relocated to Tell City and the county moved to a modern, accessible facility, the old courthouse on the square was left without a primary tenant.
The Perry County Museum acquired the building in 1998 and converted it into a repository for local history: collections of regional pottery, glassware, memorabilia, and historical documents now fill the rooms where attorneys once argued cases. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The museum actively partners with paranormal investigation teams — the Echoes From Beyond investigation group is prominently featured on the museum's site — reflecting the building's growing reputation among paranormal enthusiasts.
Sources
- https://tedshideler.com/2023/03/02/the-perry-county-indiana-courthouse-1897-1994/
- https://perrycountymuseum.org/
- https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=171730
EVPResidual haunting
American Hauntings, operating since 1993, has placed the Old Perry County Courthouse on their active investigation roster and calls it one of the most unusual haunted locations in Indiana. The company offers overnight investigations specifically because of the building's dual nature as both a historic structure and an artifact repository.
The theory advanced by investigators is distinctive: the reported paranormal activity at the courthouse is not necessarily tied to any single documented death or dramatic event within the building itself. Instead, the hundreds of donated artifacts that fill the Perry County Museum — objects gathered from across the county, each with its own history, previous owners, and unknown circumstances — are believed to create a cumulative environment that investigators find unusually active.
This concept of object-attached phenomena, sometimes called artifact-based haunting in paranormal investigation communities, is rarely the primary focus at most historical venues. At the Perry County Courthouse, it is the central claim.
The museum's own website prominently features the Echoes From Beyond investigation team, indicating that paranormal programming is an active and intentional part of the museum's public identity, not simply an external attribution. Specific reported phenomena from investigation events are not detailed in published sources reviewed for this entry.
