The Maricopa County Courthouse and Phoenix City Hall was a joint effort of Maricopa County and the City of Phoenix, a "monumentally scaled" building taking up a full city block downtown. As city and county government matured, officials realized that a building of sufficient size was necessary to house county and city functions in an expanding Phoenix and Maricopa County. Maricopa County's facilities were an imposing two-story brick building in Block 76 of the townsite, completed in 1884; meanwhile, the original 1889 Phoenix city hall, which was designed by James M. Creighton and doubled as territorial capital until 1901, was also becoming too cramped for continued use.
