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Human habitation in the area that now comprises Cherokee County goes back to the Clovis culture, some 12,000 years ago. In the Caddo were known to be in the area beginning around 800 AD, migrating to the Brazos River area in the 1830s, and finally force to move to a reservation, and then on to Oklahoma.
The Cherokee, Delaware, Shawnee, and Kickapoo began moving into the area in the 1820s, but were also forced out in the 1840s.
The first likely Europeans into the area were the Spanish expedition led by Luis de Moscoso Alvarado in 1542 or the French La Salle expedition of 1686–87.
Anglo settlement increased rapidly in the 1830s, which inevitably led to clashes between Native Americans and white settlers, resulting in the removal of Native peoples from the area.
Cherokee County was marked off from Nacogdoches County in April of 1846, and was formally organized that July, with the the town of Rusk (comprised of only one family at the time) named the county seat.
Now the second largest city in Cherokee County, Rusk was created by the Republic of Texas legislature as the county seat of the newly created county, and named after Texas Declaration of Independence signer Thomas Jefferson Rusk. By 1850, it was reported to have 355 residents due to residents moving there from other nearby towns.
A post office was organized in 1847, as well as the first church. In 1848, a Masonic Lodge was started, and schools were organized over the next several years.
Completed in 1941, the current WPA built Moderne style building is the county's fifth courthouse, the first of which was a log cabin.
Built of local stone with cast aluminum Art Deco details around the front entrance and on the windows, it cost $100,000 (over $2,238,700 in today's money) to build. An annex building (which I did not photograph) was built a block way in the early 1950s.