This historical marker sits just across from Lyles Gaslight Square Park and right beside the Tampa Police Department building, and it quietly anchors a corner of downtown where Hillsborough County's early civic life once unfolded. The marker explains that for 104 years this single block served as the center of both executive and judicial government for the county, a place where each generation built, rebuilt, and reimagined its courthouse as Tampa grew from a frontier settlement into a modern city.
It reads, "For 104 years this block was the official site of executive and judicial government for Hillsborough County, Florida. The first courthouse, a log building burned by Seminole Indians in 1836, possibly stood here. Subsequent ones were built on this square in 1848, 1855 and 1891. The latter a unique red brick, silver domed building, designed by J.A. Wood, architect of H.B. Plant's famed Tampa Bay Hotel, was demolished in 1952." There is no number of the marker. It was erected in 1972 by Tampa Historical Society in cooperation with Marine Bank and Trust Co.
Today the county's judicial functions have long since moved a few blocks away to the George E Edgecomb Courthouse at Jefferson Street and Twiggs Street, a modern facility completed in 2004 that now serves as the primary courthouse for Hillsborough County. The contrast between the sleek contemporary building and the quiet little marker makes the history feel especially tangible, as if the old square is still whispering the story of the county's earliest public life.
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