Springfield's 1918–1924 Romanesque courthouse where a court employee encountered a dark mist alone at night, chairs move in locked rooms, and a long-departed judge is said to watch over the courtrooms.
101 N Limestone St, Springfield, OH 45502
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Public building accessible during court hours at no charge
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved grounds and public courthouse interior
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1918 · Clark County primary judicial facility since 1924 · Romanesque design by William K. Schilling · 1999 interior renovation prompted early documented paranormal accounts
The Clark County Courthouse at 101 North Limestone Street was built between 1918 and 1924 under the design of architect William K. Schilling, whose Romanesque approach produced a building that remained physically distinctive in downtown Springfield throughout the twentieth century. The $115,000 construction cost reflected a significant civic investment for a county seat of Springfield's size.
The building underwent interior renovation in 1999, a project that prompted some of the earliest documented accounts of strange activity at the site. Third-shift construction workers reported seeing figures in areas of the building that should have been unoccupied.
Betty Weethee, who worked at the courthouse for nearly 24 years, became the most publicly identified source of paranormal accounts from inside the building. She reported encountering a dark mist while working alone late at night—an experience that, by her account, was frightening enough that she stopped working in the building by herself after hours. Other staff members reported pens leaving their holders, paperclips moving across desks, lights operating without control, and chairs repositioned in locked and unoccupied rooms. A figure matching the description of a man wearing red suspenders was reported in the clerk's office by a judge's secretary. These accounts accumulated across multiple staff members working in different areas of the building over different periods.
Sources
The Clark County Courthouse's paranormal reputation rests almost entirely on firsthand accounts from courthouse employees, which gives it a different texture than sites associated with tourist legend-tripping. Betty Weethee, who worked the building for close to 24 years, encountered a dark mist while alone after hours—her description of the experience was specific enough to shift her behavior, as she declined to work late in the building alone after that point.
The variety of reported phenomena is wide: office equipment turning on without input, paperclips and pens moving across flat surfaces, light fixtures swaying in still air, and chairs found moved in locked rooms overnight. None of these accounts has been captured by instrumented investigation, as far as publicly available records show.
The figure identified by a judge's secretary—a man wearing red suspenders in the clerk's office, visible briefly before disappearing—doesn't match any specific historical record of the courthouse. The more general legend of a long-departed judge haunting the building and monitoring proceedings is the oldest persistent tradition, and the Ohio Court News Service documented the courthouse's haunted reputation in its 2013 Halloween feature on Ohio's haunted courthouses.
Notable Entities
Explore the exterior and public areas of Clark County's 1918–1924 Romanesque courthouse, designed by architect William K. Schilling. The building's paranormal reputation—rooted in staff accounts spanning several decades—makes it a draw for dark-history visitors to Springfield.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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