Courthouse in County Building

For fifty years the County continued to use this building. Then, in 1820, the General
Assembly felt that the time had come for the two governments to be finally separated and it
resolved: "That it is inexpedient and improper, to suffer the register of wills or the clerk
of Anne Arundel county court, to occupy rooms in the public buildings as offices, and that the
governor and council be requested to direct the said officers to remove their books and papers
before the first day of August next." ²⁷

At the next session of the General Assembly an act was passed authorizing the construc-
tion of a county-owned courthouse.²⁸ The building was completed in 1824, and it still stands
but it has undergone many changes. It was remodeled in 1892, and some parts of it were made
fire-resistant in 1925.²⁹ An addition was authorized by Chapter 190 of the Acts of 1949 which,
when completed in 1952, altogether dwarfed the original building. The disparity in size of
the two buildings now joined together is indicated in part by the fact that the old building
cost $12,000; the annex, $910,000.³⁰ Earle S. Harder and Leonard Dressel, Jr., of Glen Burnie
Maryland, were architects for the annex; the general contractors were The Mullan Contracting
Company of Baltimore.

27 Proceedings, House of Delegates, December Session 1819, p. 123. 28Ch. 67. Acts of 1820.

29 Louis Dow Scisco, "Colonial Records of Anne Arundel County," Md. Hist. Mag., XXII, 62-67. 30 These figures are taken from an article of Dorothy S. Kirk- ley which appeared in the Maryland Gazette, April 9, 1953. 16