Dred and Harriet Scott at the Old Courthouse

The first two trials in the Dred Scott case were held here in 1847 and 1850.

The case eventually reached the United States Supreme Court, which issued its decision in 1857. The ruling declared the Missouri Compromise void and denied citizenship to Black Americans. Its effect was to deepen national divisions over slavery and help push the country toward the Civil War.

Among the four museum galleries in the renovated building is the Dred and Harriet Scott gallery, which follows the couple's push for freedom and the lasting importance of their case. A short film called A Bid for Freedom runs four minutes and 32 seconds. In it, performers stage an imagined discussion between the couple about what could happen to their family if they sued for freedom, weighed against what could happen if they let the chance pass.

The Old Courthouse reopened in 2025 after a renovation carried out by the National Park Service with the Gateway Arch Park Foundation. The renovation closes out the CityArchRiver effort, the Park Service's biggest joint undertaking with a private partner to date. Visitors can walk through the restored historic courtrooms, where Virginia Minor's 1870s case for a woman's right to vote was heard.

The building is also part of the National Park Service's National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom, a program that lists places with documented ties to the Underground Railroad. It earns that listing because legal challenges to slavery were heard inside its walls and because it served the public as more than a courthouse.