Building the courthouse

County Judge R. M. Ruthven declared the county courthouse to be unsafe and too small for county needs in 1939. Ruthven was instrumental in the construction of the Cotter Bridge in Baxter County which opened the area to commerce in 1928. The courthouse was expanded from two to three stories as a method to keep the county seat in Mountain Home in response to a 1912 state law which kept county seats from moving out of three story buildings.^[2] Ruthven acquired the services of T. Ewing Shelton, an architect from Fayetteville, Arkansas to draft plans for a new courthouse. The plans were received and approved by voters, despite protests by Gassville and Cotter residents who wanted the county seat relocated to their cities with greater populations.

During the 1940s, Baxter County was very depressed economically and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) was active in the county. Mountain Home was a shrinking community with little industry and few paved roads. As a county, Baxter County saw many farmers abandon their farms and move away during the 1940s. Construction began on the Norfork Dam in 1941 and the Bull Shoals Dam in 1947. The courthouse project received state approval as a WPA project the following year and construction began after razing the old courthouse in August 1941.