Sidney Courthouse Square Historic District

Sidney's Courthouse Square Historic District is a downtown core of about 23 acres arranged around the Shelby County courthouse, a French Second Empire building completed in 1881 and designed by G.H. Maetzel of Columbus. Surrounding it are commercial blocks from the 1840s to the 1940s, a Greek Revival house from 1853, an 1875 Italianate jail, an 1883 Romanesque Revival steam plant and the 1874 Taylor Building opera house. A bank designed by Louis Sullivan in 1917 is another landmark on the square. The town was laid out in 1820 as the county seat, and the canal feeder of the late 1830s and the railroads of the 1850s spurred its growth. The district was recognized for the variety and quality of its architecture, the largely unbroken Victorian streetscape along Main Avenue, and the way every structure relates to the courthouse at the center. Although some storefronts are altered and a few buildings are gone, the core remains cohesive.