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New Albany, founded in 1840 as a mill site on the Tallahatchie River, was made the county seat when the state legislature formed Union County in 1870. The courthouse, located in a large square and designed by Ostling of Montgomery, Alabama, displays a relatively lavish form of Beaux-Arts classicism, which was the preferred style for the state’s public buildings in the two decades after the New Capitol (JM16) was erected in 1903. Its composition is a cascade of blind arches, modillions, bracketed window lintels with prominent moldings, and quoins. The most impressive features are its four giant-order Ionic porticos and a dome with a French Baroque cupola. Less conventional but also French-inspired features are the dome’s corner aedicula capped by pavilion roofs.