This 1898 Lane County Courthouse was replaced by the current structure in 1959. Lane County was established on January 29, 1851. It was created from the southern part of Linn County and that portion of Benton County which was east of Umpqua County. Originally it covered all of southern Oregon east to the Rocky Mountains and south to the California border. It was named after the territory's first governor, Joseph Lane.
Lane County is situated in west central Oregon.
It has been vastly reduced from its original size and shifted from its original location by several boundary changes. One of the first changes gave it access to the Pacific Ocean when it acquired the northern part of Umpqua County in 1853. With the creation of Wasco County in 1854, it lost all of its territory east of the Cascade Mountains. When the Territorial Legislature created Lane County, it did not designate a county seat. In the 1853 election four sites competed for the designation.