The Argyle Township Court House & Gaol is Canada’s oldest standing courthouse, built in the village of Tusket, Nova Scotia in 1805. It operated as a working courthouse and jail from 1805 until 1944. The building served as the Municipal Offices for the Municipality of Argyle from 1945 until 1976. In 1982, the building was partially restored and re-opened as a museum and historic site and in 2005, was officially declared a National Historic Site. 
 
The Argyle Township Court House Archives was established in 1983 and became the first Municipal Archives in Nova Scotia. The archives was formed around the large body of municipal records that remained in the Argyle Township Court House when the Municipal Offices removed from the building in 1976. 
 
The archives continued to operate from the Court House from 1983 to 2006. In 2000, the Argyle Municipality Historical & Genealogical Society took the bold move of purchasing the former Seventh-Day Adventist church building located on the property to the south of the Court House. The municipal archives now sit in this building.