From Cardinal News
The plan up until last Tuesday was to move the building during the construction of the new county courthouse. Project managers told the Botetourt County Board of Supervisors that this won’t be feasible due to the condition of the building.
by Samantha Verrelli
June 30, 2025
Fincastle Mayor Mary Bess Smith, among others in town, was taken by surprise last week when the Botetourt County Board of Supervisors was told by project managers that relocating a historic building would no longer be possible, and that the building would be demolished.
. . .
Multiple 1800s-era buildings surround the courthouse site, including the Museum Building, which once housed the law office of James Breckenridge, a veteran of the Revolutionary War and War of 1812, a member of the Virginia House of Delegates and a U.S. congressman.
. . .
Botetourt County quickly switched gears from a plan to move the Museum Building, to demolishing it
The county began planning for a new courthouse a few years ago. The most recent courthouse, which was built in the 1970s after a fire destroyed the original structure, was concrete, which former Botetourt County Circuit Judge Malfourd “Bo” Trumbo said doesn’t work well with modern wiring and Wi-Fi systems. A modern courthouse also requires more square feet to house metal detectors and other security measures.
Smith, the mayor, said the sprinkler system in the courthouse, which was installed above the insulation, froze and burst one winter, drenching the inside of the building. Moisture seeped into the concrete walls, creating black mold. The courthouse was also built before the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed and so didn’t comply with all of its requirements. The county recently demolished the old structure and is preparing to erect a new courthouse on the same site.
The Museum Building, which sits just a couple dozen feet from the courthouse, is in the way of construction.
. . .
The board was told that no action was needed at the time, and that the project team would move forward with demolition, with the intention to preserve as much as it could of the building.
The news came as a “shock” to the town of Fincastle, Smith said.
. . .
Fincastle itself, aside from its pre-revolutionary buildings, is a piece of history. Formed in 1772, the town was the municipal hub for a county that once stretched to the Mississippi River.
The Museum Building housed the Botetourt Historical Society and the Botetourt County Museum up until three years ago.
At one point early in the building’s history, one room of the brick building housed Breckenridge’s law office.
Breckenridge, who opposed declaring war on Britain in 1812, led Virginia militiamen from Richmond to Washington and Baltimore during the Revolutionary War, according to Encyclopedia Virginia. He owned about 4,000 acres of land by the early 1800s, with multiple properties built by his slaves. He died in 1833.
The building Breckenridge worked in, once expanded, served as part of the Western Hotel Complex in the 1840s and 1850s, when Fincastle was known as a “stage coach shop,” Trumbo said, and was a “frontier stop-off” for those traveling West. The hotel was complete with a tavern and horse stables, said Lynsey Allie, executive director of the Botetourt County Historical Society.
In the 1930s, Allie said, the Dodd family converted the building into apartments, which lasted until the 1950s when the county took ownership of the building. The historical society moved out once conversations about replacing the courthouse began.
. . .
