The National Register of History Places Nomination Form highlights the significance of this former courthouse and tells us:
The Mineral County Courthouse is significant as it originally served as Esmeralda County's second courthouse (1883 1907), and later saw service as the first Mineral County Courthouse (1911-1974). It is the only structure in the State's history which served as a courthouse for two different Nevada counties, and is one of seven extant 19th-century courthouses in the State. Excluding a small number of residential structures which escaped the periodic fires besetting Hawthorne during its first one hundred years., the courthouse, from all indications, is the oldest substantial, nonframe structure in the Mineral County seat of government.
Less than two years after the infant community of Hawthorne was founded as a station on the newly-constructed Carson & Colorado Railroad, the citizens of the fledgling town had mounted a campaign to acquire county seat status. On March 1, 1883, the State Legislature approved "An Act to remove the county seat of Esmeralda County from the town of Aurora to the town of Hawthorne," and approved the sale of bonds to raise funds for the construction of a courthouse "in a sum not exceeding thirty thousand dollars." The effective date for the transfer of office was July 1.
The original building specifications for the courthouse called for a wood frame structure, but with the opening of the Hawthorne brick yard in the spring of 1883, it was generally agreed that the courthouse should be a brick building and the specifications were subsequently changed. The Esmeralda County Commissioners appointed A.C. Glenn as supervising architect of the project, and George W. Babcock was awarded the construction contract with a bid of $29,125.00.
On August 16, ground breaking ceremonies were held and work commenced. The cornerstone was placed on September 8 and numerous articles were placed inside including the building specifications and plans, various coins, photographs, name cards, and so on. The work was completed on December 5, 1883 at a cost of $33,967.00, but not until after A.C. Glenn had been fired as a result of an investigation into alleged corruption involving the project. D. R. Munro was subsequently appointed supervising architect and saw the courthouse project to its completion. In January 1884, the Esmeralda County Grand Jury directed the District Attorney to bring suit against Babcock for an illegal claim paid him during construction. In addition, as the county officers began moving into the new courthouse, the Grand Jury filed a report which charged that the new Esmeralda County Courthouse was one-third the specified size, the vault doors were made of 1/8 inch iron instead of the intended 3/8 inch boiler steel, that there were no water pipes, sink, or valves in either the kitchen or jail, and that the ceiling joints were not anchored to the building. There were many serious problems with the structure as enumerated in the report including the fact that the foundation was settling at an alarming rate. The Grand Jury advised that piers be put in immediately to counteract the settling which was done. Nonetheless, a cupola situated in the center of the courthouse had to be removed shortly thereafter because its weight had resulted in considerable structural damage. As a result of the scandal, two county commissioners one being the brother of A.C. Glenn, resigned from office.
The Esmeralda-Mineral County Courthouse has had other notable events associated with its long history. The highly-publicized Preston-Smith murder trial of 1907 was heard in the district court in Hawthorne prior to the relocation of the county seat from Hawthorne to Goldfield in May. The two delegates of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), a radical labor union, were confined to the courthouse jail following a fatal shooting affray during a bitter labor dispute in Goldfield. Morrie Rockwood Preston, while serving a sentence for second-degree murder in the Nevada State Prison, was nominated as the Socialist Labor Party's candidate for the U.S. Presidency in 1908. Preston polled over 25,000 votes nation-wide and was the first presidential candidate to run for office while incarcerated in prison.
In 1921, Gee Jon and Hughie Sing were convicted in the Mineral County District Court of first-degree murder. As a result of the Tong war killing in Mina, both men were sentenced to death. Hughie Sing received a commutation of his death sentence shortly before the scheduled execution in February 1924. Gee Jon had the dubious distinction of being the first person in the Nation to be legally executed by lethal (hydrocyanic) gas.