The courthouse was completed in 1916, two years after the Hamlin county seat was moved to Hayti from Castlewood by popular vote.

Architects William W. Rose and David B. Peterson of Kansas City, Missouri designed the courthouse; their Classical Revival design was typical of contemporary courthouse architecture in South Dakota.

The four-story limestone building features four Ionic columns along the front facade and an entablature with an egg-and-dart frieze and a dentillated cornice.

[2] The courthouse was added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 12, 2000.

This article about a property in South Dakota on the National Register of Historic Places is a stub.