
Callands was a busy little courthouse town in the eighteenth century and today is a local hot spot of architectural controversy. All agree that when Pittsylvania became a county in 1767, its first courthouse was built at Callands. Pittsylvanians tenaciously hold to the belief that the gable-end brick structure is the first Pittsylvania County Courthouse and that the small three-bay brick building opposite is the first Pittsylvania County Clerk's Office. However evocative the locale and attractive the buildings, architectural evidence leads to the conclusion that these fine one-story buildings laid up in Flemish and common bond with stepped brick cornices are early-nineteenth-century buildings, important structures for their own time.