The 1836 courthouse square

On August 16, 1836, Edward Orne donated 40 acres of Section 13 Township 3 Range 8 West to the Board of Police for a county seat. The tract was planned with a 450-foot public square surrounded by 172 lots. In the two blocks around the square there were five streets north and south and five streets east and west.

A public sale of lots in August 1836 produced funds to build a courthouse and a jail. The contract was let December 1, 1836. The town was first called Jefferson. The Mississippi Senate changed the name to Hernando to avoid confusion with other post office names in the state.

That plan still forms the center of Hernando, the county seat. Later chapters of the same history record wartime destruction of the courthouse, rebuilding in 1872, the overnight fire that destroyed the "French Castle Courthouse" in 1940, and the handsome replacement that became the central part of the present courthouse.