A Place to Plan the Future

If this were summer 1856, you would be standing in Chippewa County. June 11 that year, the Chippewa County Board gave up this block for a Courthouse Square. So, when Governor Bashford signed the act carving Eau Claire County from Chippewa County on October 6, this property had already been set aside. But the new government didn't meet here that winter, or the next summer. In fact, several years passed before a courthouse could be built.

The square was nevertheless quickly becoming a center of civic life. The county held its first fair here in 1858, and the next year a jail went up on this block. Finally in May 1862, the county government moved into a wood-frame building on the Emery Street side.

The county bloomed through the era. In 1853, then known as the Town of Clearwater, Chippewa County, it had 200 people. By 1860, Eau Claire County had 3,200 folks; by 1870, it had 11,000.

Only ten years after the county moved its operations here, growth in county needs and services forced yet another move.

In 1873, the county began building a new courthouse at Grand and Oxford on Eau Claire's west side. By 1877, the county had vacated the "old" county building, given Courthouse Square to the city for Wilson Park, and sold the wood-frame structure. Its new owners moved the building a block west, where it became the Binder House hotel. It held apartments from 1893 to 1953, when its last owner tore it down.

[Caption on map: Detail of bird's eye map of Eau Claire, 1872. Courthouse Square is marked by the [star]. The block was still bordered by Farwell, Barstow, Emery, and Earl Streets in 2006.]

Major contributions provided by Charter Bank Eau Claire, Wisconsin Humanities Council, and other donors to the Eau Claire County Sesquicentennial Commission.

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