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Texas
| Architecture
| Courthouses
Dignity, Decorum
and Justice
Mark Texas' Courthouse Histories,
Except for the Fights, Arsons, Thefts, etc
by Bill Morgan
Page 6
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5
The Artists
in Brick, Stone and Mortar
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5
When
it came to names, Texas attracted some of the biggest among the country's
Nineteenth Century architects, the men whose work inspired that less-than-modest
label "The Golden Age of Texas Courthouse Architecture." Designers
spread out across Texas quicker than the railroads in the last quarter
of that century. Courthouses were evolving into the counties' socio-economic
bell cow and every politician and civic leader wanted a defining landmark.
They usually got what they wanted. Weekdays under sprouting canopies
of oak, elm and pecan trees, vest-pocket entrepreneurs haggled over
the price of mules and old men in overalls haggled over the tally
in domino games. Come Saturday, farmers and their families streamed
in from around the county. They maneuvered their wagons to parking
spots around the square, shopped at the mercantile and lamented the
sorry state of crop prices. Their kids romped on the courthouse lawn,
darting between veterans of the Mexican, Civil or Spanish-American
Wars as they swapped stories.
The men who designed these landmarks began arriving in the 1870s.
In the next quarter century they would cement reputations that grow
larger with the passing decades. The first wave included brothers
from Cleveland, Ohio who practiced their genius in Central and West
Texas. Between them, F.E.
and Oscar Ruffini built five courthouses that still stand. The
Concho
County courthouse at Paint
Rock carries the mark of both: F.E. died after completing the
design and Oscar supervised the construction that was completed in
1886.
Oscar's work impressed generations of University of Texas students,
even if only a handful of them knew his name: he designed the "Old
Main" administration building that remained a campus landmark until
its demolition in 1953. Courthouses weren't the only architectural
landmarks that gave way to the post-World
War II statewide facelift. Alfred
Giles was the busiest of the early courthouse architects, which
helped pay the cost of his move from his native England after he studied
at London's King College. He designed the courthouses of Brooks
(Falfurrias),
Gillespie
(Fredericksburg),
Kendall
(Boerne), Live
Oak (George West),
Presidio
(Marfa), Webb
(Laredo),
Wilson
(Floresville),
Caldwell
(Lockhart) and Goliad
(Goliad)
Counties. The latter two were identical and are again-a hurricane
in 1942 took away Goliad's clock tower and corner turrets. The building
kept its flattop look until a complete restoration in 2002.
Giles
got a first-hand taste of life in the Old West on a trip to Fredericksburg
to work on his Gillespie
County courthouse - his stagecoach was ambushed on its way from
San Antonio and the
English architect was relieved of his cash. Courthouse commissions
were pretty much locked up by a select few architects during "The
Golden Age." Henry
T. Phelps designed eleven, Herbert Voelcker ten (nine with the
Voelcker-Dixon firm), Elmore
George Withers eight, Wyatt
C. Hedrick seven and Eugene
T. Heiner six.
The two names that stand out, even from more than a century away,
are Wesley
Clarke Dodson and his boy-genius protégé-turned-rival from West
Virginia, James
Riely Gordon. In one 14-year span, Dodson designed seven still-standing
courthouses - Coryell
(Gatesville),
Denton
(Denton),
Fannin
(Bonham), Hill
(Hillsboro), Hood
(Granbury), Lampasas
(Lampasas) and Parker
(Weatherford).
Six of those seven were voted among the top 24 in my 1999 poll of
Texas' favorite courthouses and four are among the 12 courthouses
in my print series. The seventh
Dodson courthouse in that 14-year span is in Fannin
County at Bonham. It
slipped from a classical to an average courthouse by degrees. A fire
in 1929 took out the tower, gable and roof. The entire building was
bricked over in 1965, successfully entombing a Dodson masterpiece
inside a brick façade that looks like a bank or dentist's office.
Gordon's meteoric career took off in 1891 when he designed the Fayette
County courthouse at LaGrange
at the age of 28. He spent little more than a decade in Texas before
moving to New York, but it was a dazzling decade. Twelve of his courthouses
monopolized my poll of people who have visited all 254
courthouses. Five Gordon designs were named in the top ten, seven
in the top 20 and the worst finish among his 12 Texas buildings was
35th. When Gordon died in 1937, The New York Times credited him with
designing 72 courthouses in Texas and Midwest states, along with the
Arizona state capital.
One of my most memorable visits was to a Gordon building, the spectacular
1892
Victoria County courthouse. I couldn't quite make out an intricate
detail, so I gingerly stepped out in the middle of Constitution Street,
planted my feet on the yellow line and trusted that no vehicle would
stray out of its lane as I began sketching. I became aware that something
was crowding up close to my back. I turned and faced a hard-worked
pickup truck stopped in the middle of the street. I turned all the
way around and was almost nose to nose with its driver, an elderly
man in work khakis. He grinned, nodded toward the courthouse and asked,
"Ain't that the ugliest son of a b---- you ever seen?" We agreed that
it really wasn't, traded opinions on the nooks and crannies, colors
and contours of the Gordon masterpiece for a couple minutes as he
blocked the only traffic lane on that side of the street and I did
imitations of a bullfighter's paso dobles as cars slipped past in
the other lane. Apparently, the good folks of Victoria
County are used to their courthouse stopping traffic.
James Riely Gordon knew how to close a deal, too. A usual procedure
in the courthouse-building boom of the l880-1910 era saw county commissioners
send out word that they were conducting a competition for their new
courthouse. Architects would present their designs and commissioners
chose among them. Comal
County officials called on Gordon in nearby San
Antonio to help them set the rules for their competition. Gordon
visited the commissioners and suggested that instead of a competition,
they travel around and look over standing courthouses, then choose
the architect whose work they most admired. And, of course, a few
of his were just a few miles away - the Bexar
courthouse 25 miles south, Lee's
almost-new courthouse 85 miles to the northeast, Fayette's
just 20 miles south of Lee's, Ellis's
about 250 miles north, and so on. The Comal County commissioners got
an idea - they commissioned Gordon to build them a near duplicate
of the Lee
County courthouse, and they didn't have to weigh all those plans
and interview all those architects their competition would attract.
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Comal
County Courthouse
The design in stone
TE photo |
Lee
County Courthouse in Giddings
The design in brick
TE photo |
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One reason courthouses inspire such loyalty these days is that the
old ones are truly survivors. For that decade after World
War II, and beyond in a few cases, courthouses might have led
our endangered-species list. First, there was that arson business
in the late 1800s and early 1900s, then the post-war face-lift, where
historic courthouses were reduced to rubble to make room for concrete
and glass boxes. We lost some landmarks that can never be replaced,
but those dark days produced a few silver linings. We learned a couple
of things in that building frenzy - first, you don't get "overs" once
you demolish something irreplaceable and, second, it inspired preservationists
to spring up like Minute Men when local architectural treasures are
threatened. These citizen-soldiers learned to overcome quickly and
effectively in the last half of the Twentieth Century. By my count,
they saved more than a dozen old courthouses from the wrecking ball
of "progressive" town planning. And I'll bet I missed a bunch of other
trench wars won in quieter battles by the good guys. Thanks, preservationists.
The state owes you one because they don't build 'em like they used
to. |
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