The Court House  and Court Street	Court House  & City Hall	Mason County Courthouse and Presbyterian Church  Thanks! to Regina Stewart for this image

 

Mason County Courthouse	Mason County Courthouse, circa 1910	Mason County Court House, March 30, 1941

The Courthouse, and the area around it (pdf) are on the National Register of Historic Places.

“A criminal at the present term of the Circuit Court, on being asked by the judge if he had
anything to offer in his defense said: ‘No. He had five dollars, but his lawyer took that.’”
Courier-Journal, November 10, 1873, reprinting an item from the Maysville Bulletin

“Lizzie Moore, Kate Bower and Fannie Washington, young colored girls, were arrested for jostling white women off the sidewalks and street crossings.  The judge ordered their mothers to spank them.”  Maysville news, reprinted in the Warsaw Independent, August 18, 1906

 

Mason County Court House. 1912

Thanks to Paul Gallenstein for more info on this one: “The first building on the left is the current Sheriffs' Office  (the one with the small balcony), the building next to it is the  County Clerks and Circuit Clerks Offices,  the building next  to it is the Court House ( the one with the clock on top),  and the building next to it is the First Presbyterian Church.”
Charles Curran's poetic tribute to the Old Town clock, is here. (pdf)
“There was no clock maker in Maysville when the courthouse was built and until 1850 the town was without a town clock. In that year Maysville purchased a clock built by a Flemingsburg blacksmith. It had been built for the courthouse in Fleming County, but when the Fiscal Court of that county refused to pay the price he asked, it was purchased by Mason County. He made the parts of the clock almost entirely out of wood and that he did his work well is attested by the fact that the clock was in operation, and by it housewives set the clocks in their homes, and it was the official time of the city. Exposure to the weather affected the clock and for the past year it has not run.” Cincinnati Times-Star, April 25, 1940
...and as we understand the history of the Mason County Court House, it was built when Washington was still the county seat.  Evidently there were some fairly powerful politicians who wanted it moved, so they had an election.  They lost; the people voted to keep it in Washington.  And the powers that wanted it moved said, “Wait, we did it wrong, let's try it again.”  So they had another election.  And they lost again.  At that point, they went to the legislature and had the State officially dictate the change of the county seat to Maysville.
The First Election	The Second Election	The dictate.

1910		1969

Mason County Jail
It housed its first prisoner on April 3, 1884

Description of an earlier jail in 1836.

 

Cincinnati Commercial Tribune, May 22, 1847

Incinerator, 1940	Clerk's Office, 1940	Sheriff's Office

 

Opera House and Post Office

 

Maysville Post Office Workers, 1900  

The Old Library, now the Kentucky Gateway Museum Center, is on the National Register of Historic Places.(pdf)

 

Maysville Post Office,	Maysville Post  Office,	Maysville Post Office, 1908	Maysville Post Office, 1912
This Post Office first opened for business on December. 4, 1905

 

Maysville mail carriers, c. 1910

“The number of letters carried between Maysville and Cincinnati last month was 24,400.
Of that number, 2350 were deposited in the mail box on the boat.” Courier-Journal, May 20, 1871

  The 1794 Maysville postal route, here.

“On the 12th of April, the Western mail between Maysville and West Union, Ohio, was robbed. The mail driver and a man belonging to the town of Aberdeen were concerned. The sum of 335 dollars was found upon the post rider, who has been committed to jail.” Freedom's Journal, May 16, 1828

Maysville City Officials, 1910

All of the government officials described here are from the April 9, 1910 edition of Maysville's Public Ledger.		J. Wesley Lee, Mayor of Maysville	Charles C. Hopper, Revenue Collector
Charles D. Pearce, County Treasurer	Maysville Post Office, Clarence Mathews, Postmaster	William M. Daugherty, City Assessor	Judge C. D. Newell, Circuit Judge
Judge Garrett Wall	Andrew M. Cochran, Federal Judge	Louis Gaebke, Magistrate	Charles Slack, Coroner
John W. Eital, County Jailer	J. O. Pickrell, County Magistrate	Thomas Slattery, County Attorney	W. H. Mackoy, Mason County Sheriff
J. M. Collins, City Attorney	Judge W. H. Rice, Mason County Judge	W. P. Dickson, Mason County Clerk	John L Whitaker, Police Judge
M. J. Hennessey, Commonwealth Attorney	James Key, Circuit Court Clerk	Harry Ort, Chief of Police	Henry Childs, County Assessor

Maysville Trustees permitted to raise taxes for a city hall, in 1844,

An 1841 law said you could pay Mason taxes for road upkeep, or could go to work on the roads

 

1935 Maysville Officials

 

An earlier water supply system, c. 1910 At the foot of Lexington Street	Maysville Pool, c 1950 On East Second Street.
We've read that after the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Decision (Wikipedia), authorities elected to close the pool rather than to allow integration.

 

1937 Flood

 

Story of the Maysville Water system, from 1935, here.

Maysville Water Company incorporates in 1837, here.

“The Maysville (Ky.) Water Company is having built, by the Geo. F. Blake Manufacturing Co., of New York and Boston, a condensing pumping engine of 2,000,000 gallons capacity per diem. Also an auxiliary pumping engine of 1,500,000 gallons capacity. These engines will have to pump against a head of over 350 feet.” Manufacturer and Builder, July 1880.