Otter Tail County opens courthouse for Law Day community event

Otter Tail County is opening the doors to a place most residents only see from the outside, giving families, students and taxpayers a chance to walk through the courthouse, watch court in session and meet the people who keep the local justice system moving.

The free Law Day open house is set for May 1 at the historic courthouse, 121 West Junius Avenue in Fergus Falls. County materials say community members and school groups are welcome from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. for court observation, courthouse tours, a mock trial, an information fair and a selfie station. The mix turns a formal civic observance into a hands-on look at how county government works behind the scenes.

That matters in a courthouse that handles far more than dramatic trials. Otter Tail County District Court has original jurisdiction in civil, family, probate, juvenile, criminal and traffic cases filed in the county, making the building a daily stop for disputes, records, hearings and public safety matters that affect local lives in direct ways. Inside the courthouse are the law enforcement center, the county jail, three courtrooms, judicial offices and several meeting rooms, all under one roof in the same building that has served as the seat of county government since 1922.

The setting carries a long county history. Fergus Falls became the county seat in 1872, the original courthouse on the site was built in 1881 and that building was destroyed by the cyclone of 1919 before the current courthouse opened in 1922. For more than a century, the site has remained one of the central institutions in Otter Tail County, first as the government seat from 1922 to 2003 and now as a place where residents encounter the county’s legal and administrative machinery.

The event also ties Otter Tail County to a national observance with roots going back decades. Law Day is held annually on May 1 and was conceived by the American Bar Association in 1957, proclaimed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1958 and later designated by Congress in 1961. The day is meant to celebrate the rule of law and the idea that law protects liberty and justice, but in Fergus Falls the message is practical: the courthouse is not just a symbol, it is where the county’s most routine and consequential cases are heard.

County materials list the open house for May 1, 2026, though one page describes it as Friday and another as Thursday. Either way, the courthouse event offers a rare public look at the institutions that shape daily life in Otter Tail County.