Kaunas castle tower, where the offices of the county land and castle courts of Kaunas noblemen had been established, was washed away by the River Neris and eventually fell down in the beginning of the 17th century. The Kaunas noblemen raised demands to allow their court to sit at the Town Hall, but the town townspeople managed to resist. The noblemen became more active in the last quarter of the 18th century, when the reconstruction of the Town Hall was nearing its completion and it became clear that the new building was much more spacious than the old one. From 1787, the state commissions, comprised of noblemen, started working at the Town Hall, and in the heat of the reforms of 1792, the townspeople of Kaunas allowed the county offices to move into the Town Hall as a sign of gratitude to the noblemen for the Law on Towns, which had widened the rights and freedoms of the townspeople. Although the reforms stalled, the noblemen stayed in the Town Hall.
