The courthouse was opened on Saturday night at a small ceremony attended by about 40 people. It was reopened on Sunday to the general public.

Ann Fairbanks and the small Emmaville Community Trust, a group with less than half a dozen members, celebrated the end of nine years of tough, physical labour.

"It's just been a hard slog all the way along - so much work. Nearly every Sunday was a working bee," she said.

"And then when there were events on, with the sheep races, we start in December preparing for that."

The court is now open by appointment, but Ms Fairbanks plans to develop a roster so it can be open on weekends. The courthouse is intended to act as a tourism attraction, which she says is an incredibly important and growing industry for the town.

"It's another great tourist asset to add to the mining museum," she said.

"Which gives the town two venues to visit when they come out here.

"Small villages like Emmaville need their tourists!"

Ann Fairbanks started the long journey to their full repair of the courthouse in 2010. Termites were discovered in the walls of the Federation-style, mid-war building in 2009, forcing out an existing childcare centre. She decided to take over the place and rebuild it as it once was, virtually from scratch.

The repairs cost about $120,000. The committee put on the famous Emmaville sheep races to raise the eye-popping figure.

Now the question is, without the original reason for construction, can the Emmaville races continue? (This year's races were cancelled because the committee was too busy finishing construction and preparing the opening ceremony, and the committee vows to hold a race next year at least).

Ann said the insurance that covers the races can only be used to fund repairs for the courthouse.

Member for Northern Tablelands Adam Marshall was strongly of the view on Saturday night that they ought to go forward, perhaps to fund a different community asset or cause and that the insurance problem could be overcome.

Ms Fairbanks told the Examiner on Monday she is happy for someone else to organise future races, but says her committee is exhausted and her labour of love is over.

"If someone else wants to take them on and wants to run them somewhere else or pay for their own insurance, they're welcome to do it, but I'm not going to put that much effort into raising money to fund something else - no way!"

She says nobody is leaping at the opportunity as of yet, but fingers are crossed.