Notable Courthouses

Mariposa County Courthouse, Mariposa, California - The oldest seat of justice in continuous use west of the Rockies. The most famous case brought here was "Biddle Boggs vs. the Merced Mining Co.", testing the right of frontier explorer, Civil War commander, presidential candidate and American empire builder John C. Fremont to the gold in the land of his Mariposa grant.

The original building cost $9200 to construct in 1854. A clock tower was added in 1866 and fitted with an English clock shipped around the Cape Horn at the cost of over one million dollars.

The site of some of the most celebrated civil, water, and mining cases in California history, the California State Bar designated the courthouse a perpetual "shrine to justice in California" on its 100th anniversary in 1954.