Messkirch Castle

The administrative center, even during the Fürstenberg era, was Messkirch Castle, built by the Barons of Zimmern, the former residence of the Princes of Fürstenberg. Until it transitioned to Baden, the Fürstenberg District Office was also located there. After 1806, it housed the Baden District Office until it was dissolved in 1936 as part of an administrative reform imposed by the National Socialists, and the Meßkirch district was integrated into the Stockach district. The last remaining Fürstenberg authority in the castle was the Princely Fürstenberg Forestry Office, and until the district reform in 1973, the district court was also located there. The notary office still has its domicile in the castle.

Over the years, the General Local Health Insurance Fund (AOK) of the Stockach district and various schools also found a place there. These included the Landfrauen School of the Ursulines, later the Women's Vocational School and the Advanced Secondary School, as well as the Boarding School of the Benedictine Sisters of Saint Lioba (a branch school of Heimschule Kloster Wald, until it was relocated to Wald in 1977). Additionally, some secondary school and middle school classes used the castle's premises temporarily, until the building complex was renovated. In 1983, the music educators Ludwig and Wilma Fischer-Schwaner ran a private music school in the castle.