The Orange County Courthouse, situated at the center of the public square in Paoli, Indiana, is a premier and highly preserved example of Greek Revival civic architecture in the Midwest. Constructed between 1847 and 1850 to replace a preceding outgrown structure, the courthouse stands as one of the oldest courthouses in Indiana in continuous legislative and judicial operation. The commanding two-story brick building features a classic temple-form design, highlighted by a monumental prostyle portico supported by six fluted Doric columns. These columns, constructed of local brick wrapped in plaster, rise to support a heavy entablature and a prominent pedimented gable. Atop the roof sits an elegant, multi-tiered wooden cupola with a clock and bell tower, serving as a defining visual landmark for the town and the surrounding region.

Historically, the courthouse has functioned as the political, legal, and social anchor of Orange County for over 170 years, symbolizing the growth and civic pride of the county during the mid-19th century. Its classical styling was intentionally chosen to reflect the democratic ideals of the early American republic, making it a proud statement of local progress. The building's resilience through economic changes and its survival of a devastating fire on the town square in the late 19th century underscore its physical and cultural permanence. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975, the Orange County Courthouse remains an outstanding monument to Hoosier civic heritage and a masterpiece of antebellum public architecture.

The West Baden Springs Hotel, constructed in 1902 in Orange County, Indiana, is an architectural and engineering masterpiece widely heralded upon its completion as the "Eighth Wonder of the World." Designed by architect Harrison Albright, the resort was built in a mere 270 days to replace an earlier wood-frame hotel destroyed by fire, aiming to capitalize on the region's lucrative mineral spring tourism boom. The building's defining feature is its breathtaking, 200-foot-wide steel and glass curtain dome spanning a vast central atrium. For more than five decades, this magnificent structure held the record as the largest free-spanning dome in the world, symbolizing the height of American Gilded Age ambition, innovative engineering, and opulent resort architecture.

Beyond its structural superlatives, the hotel served as a premier luxury destination for the nation's wealthy, elite, and famous during the early 20th century, offering lavish amenities, opera, gaming, and therapeutic mineral baths in the rolling hills of southern Indiana. Following the Great Depression and the decline of the mineral springs craze, the property transitioned through several distinct chapters, serving as a Jesuit seminary (West Baden College) from 1934 to 1964, and later as a campus for the Northwood Institute. After decades of severe neglect and partial structural collapse, its designation as a National Historic Landmark in 1987 helped catalyze one of the most ambitious and expensive historic preservation projects in American history, fully restoring the spectacular resort to its former glory and securing its legacy as a monumental landmark of American leisure history.