Otter Tail County, established on March 18, 1858, had four county seats in the following decades: Otter Tail City, Clitherall, Tordenskjold and Fergus Falls. While official government business was conducted at each site, a court house was never built in the first three towns. A "sollid oak log" jail was built in Otter Tail City about 1871, but it was moved log by log to Fergus Falls after it was designated the county seat in 1872. The first county court house was built in Fergus Falls in 1881. Because of the county's growth, a large addition was built in 1888, another in 1898, two more in 1902 and 1909, and a fifth in 1915. A new jail, constructed in 1885, was considered the "finest penal institution in the state of its kind."

This article is an excerpt from a county history published in 1916.

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