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THE COURTHOUSES
OF HARRIS COUNTY Harrisburg
County was formed in December of 1836, the same year that brothers Augustus C.
and John K. Allen founded the city of Houston.
The county seat was moved to Houston from Harrisburg,
a small settlement east of Houston at the junction
of the Bray and Buffalo Bayous, in 1837. In 1839, the name of the county was changed
to Harris County in honor of early settler and the founder of Harrisburg, John
Richardson Harris.
The first five Harris County courthouses all occupied
the same plot of land, set aside by the Allen brothers specifically for the courthouse.
The first, built in 1838, was a two-story pine log building built by Maurice
I. Birdsall, who also built a log jail on the northeast corner of the courthouse
square. This courthouse was enlarged in 1841, but by 1844 its deterioration led
to its sale at auction. Claiming the building as their personal property, the
Allen brothers had it moved across the street for a short time for use as a post
office. The building was moved yet again to Washington Road for use as a store
and a home. From 1844 until 1851, court sessions were held in various hotels around
the square.
In October of 1851, a second courthouse was completed
and dedicated. Costing $15,000 and designed by F.J. Rothaas, it was a two-story
brick building with central entrances on each side and a central domed cupola.
Unfortunately, the walls and foundation developed cracks and the building had
to be demolished in 1860. The county’s third courthouse was to be built
that year. With an estimated cost of $25,000 and design by N. DeChaumes, the courthouse
was intended to be a two-story Greek Revival style building with Classical style
porticoes and a large central cupola, but by the start of the Civil War, only
the walls, floors and roof had been completed. During the war, the courthouse
was used as a cartridge factory, officer’s quarters and a hospital for Confederate
soldiers and the basement was used to house Union prisoners. This building also
deteriorated rapidly and was demolished in 1869.* Its bricks were sold and used
to construct the Annunciation Roman Catholic Church on Texas Avenue. The courthouse
square was used as a municipal park until the construction of a fourth courthouse
began in 1883 and was completed by 1884. Designed by Galveston architect
Edward J. Duhamel, who had won a contest in 1878 to design Houston’s new City
Hall and Market House, the county’s fourth courthouse was a grand three-story
Victorian style building with projecting bays on a cruciform floor plan and a
central spire. The cost of the building was $100,000. Sometime later, the tower
was removed and by the early twentieth century the building was condemned due
to its deterioration.
Plans to build a fifth courthouse were underway
in 1907. Construction began in 1909 and was completed by late 1910, but
the courthouse was not dedicated until March 2, 1911 in observance of the 75th
anniversary of Texas independence. The courthouse was designed by Charles Erwin
Barglebaugh of the Dallas architectural
firm of Lang and Witchell, who had designed courthouses for Howard, Nacogdoches,
Scurry, Cooke and Johnson counties around the same time. The $500,000 Beaux-Arts
style (also referred to as Neo-Classical Revival,) six-story courthouse was built
primarily of rough cut pink Texas granite and light brown St. Louis pressed brick
with terra-cotta, limestone and masonry ornamentation. Each side consisted of
raised, projecting porticoes with Corinthian columns and the building was crowned
with a central dome with supporting columns around the drum and a ring of eagles
around the base of the dome. The top had a Doric lantern with a cap that looked
like a chess pawn. The lantern cap was removed not long afterwards. A defeated
bond issue for a new courthouse in 1938 saved the 1910 building from demolition.
The county quickly ran out of space in this courthouse and a new modern style
courthouse was built to the east across San Jacinto Street in 1952. Built
of marble and granite, the 1952 courthouse was designed by architects George W.
Rustay and Joseph Finger, who designed Houston’s
1938-39 City Hall. Finger died during the construction of the new courthouse.
The firm of Finger and Rustay also remodeled the 1910 courthouse in 1954 which
became the Harris County Civil Courts Building upon its completion in 1956. The
interior plaster ornamentation, marble walls and dome skylight were ripped out
or covered up and the rotunda was sealed to add more office space on each floor
as were the courtroom balconies. The wood frame windows were replaced with metal
ones and the exterior stairs on the east and west side were also demolished, switching
the entrances from the second to the first floor. In 2003, plans began for the
restoration of the 1910 courthouse. The building was closed in 2006 and construction
began in 2009. The restoration of the exterior and public areas on the interior
to their 1910 condition was completed in 2011.
The growing needs of the
Harris County court system led to the building of the Family Law Center
in 1969, north of the 1910 courthouse across Congress Street, and the County
Administration Building in 1979, west of the 1910 courthouse across Fannin
Street. More recently, a twenty story Criminal Justice Center was built,
dedicated in 1999, and a seventeen story Civil Courthouse was built, dedicated
in 2006. When the new Civil Courthouse was opened, the 1952 courthouse was rededicated
as the Harris County Juvenile Justice Center. In July of 2011, the Jury Assembly
Center was opened, north across Congress Street from the 1952 courthouse.
The Jury Assembly Center’s above ground entrance leads to underground assembly
rooms that connect to a tunnel system that links all of the other court buildings
in the area.
- Terry
Jeanson, August 28, 2011
*Note
- The Harris County Historical Commission does not mention the demolition of the
1860 courthouse in 1869 and states that, “following the war and for the next fifteen
years, renovations were undertaken annually of the court building.”
Sources:
Texas Historical Commission County Atlas at http://atlas.thc.state.tx.us/shell-desig.htm,
National Register of Historic Places and the Harris County Historical Commission
at http://www.historicalcommission.hctx.net.
County history and biographical information from the Handbook
of Texas Online.
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Present
Harris County Courthouse |
Present Harris
County Courthouse
Includes:
The Family Law Center in 1969
The County Administration Building
in 1979
The Criminal Justice Center in 1999
The Civil Courthouse in 2006.
The Jury Assembly Center in 2011 |
The
Harris County Criminal Justice Center
Photo
courtesy Terry
Jeanson, August 2011 |
The
Harris County Civil Courthouse
Photo
courtesy Terry
Jeanson, August 2011
|
The
Jury Assembly Center in the foreground with
the Family Law Center
behind it.
Photo
courtesy Terry
Jeanson, August 2011
|
The
1952 Harris County courthouse
Now the Harris County Juvenile Justice Center
Photo
courtesy Terry
Jeanson, August 2011
|
The 1952 Harris
County Courthouse
Style - Modern
Material - Marble and granite
|
The
1910 Harris County Courthouse |
Architect - Lang,
Witchell & Barglebaugh
Style - Beaux-Arts
Material - Granite and brick
National Register Property
Corner of Congress and San Jacinto Streets
One postcard caption for the 1910 building states: "The Largest Courthouse
in the State of Texas." The figure that once stood atop the building disappeared
sometime before 1939. |
The
1910 Harris County Courthouse as it appeared in 1939
Photo courtesy TXDoT |
RESTORATION OF
THE 1910 HARRIS COUNTY COURTHOUSE Photographer's
Note: On August 23, 2011, I was pleased to be able to attend to rededication ceremony
of the 1910 Harris County courthouse. This was the culmination of what began in
March of 2003 when the master preservation plan was presented to the Texas Historical
Commission. The cost, nearly $65 million with $5.5 million from the Texas Historical
Commission, seemed exorbitant to many and the effort to restore the public parts
of the interior to its 1910 condition was going to be difficult because the inside
was so completely changed during the 1950s remodeling. Marble walls and plaster
ornamentation were ripped out and covered up, the rotunda was sealed off and the
glass skylight at the bottom of the dome was removed. On the exterior, the dome’s
lantern cap went missing and the massive staircases on the east and west sides
that led up to a second story entrance were removed and the entrances were moved
to the first floor. To restore the interior, historic preservationists had to
rely on remnants found from the original building, historic photographs, of which
there were few, recollections of county residents who worked or visited the courthouse
before the remodeling and examples of the original architects other work for reference.
The 1910 courthouse closed in 2006 and the actual construction phase began in
February of 2009. The result of their efforts is nothing short of miraculous which
I am unable to fully convey in these photos. It is something that needs to be
seen in person.
During my visit, I received a pamphlet called “A Self-Guided
Tour of the Harris County 1910 Courthouse.” Most of the information in the photo
captions come from this pamphlet.
- Terry
Jeanson, August 28, 2011 |
 |
1910
Harris County courthouse north entrance facing Congress Street
Photo
courtesy Terry
Jeanson, August 2011 |
1910
Harris County courthouse east portico facing San Jacinto Street
Photo
courtesy Terry
Jeanson, August 2011 |
The
restored 1910 Harris County courthouse
(Seen
from the 20th story of the Criminal Justice Center.)
Photo
courtesy Terry
Jeanson, August 2011
|
"The
courthouse dome seen from the 20th floor of the Criminal Justice Building. The
exact color of the roof's red clay tile was not known until photos of them surfaced
on the internet in 1992."
Photo
courtesy Terry
Jeanson, August 2011 |
| "The building's
original lantern cap was removed in the 1920's. This fifteen foot, $54,000 copper
replica was built in 1993 for an earlier preservation effort. It was finally installed
on top of the dome on March 14, 2010." - Terry
Jeanson |
A
collage of the building's exterior details.
Photo
courtesy Terry
Jeanson, August 2011 |
| "The
north side courtroom seen from the restored balcony. It will be housing the First
State Court of Appeals. The restored south side courtroom will be housing the
Fourteenth State Court of Appeals. The south side courtroom is similar in appearance,
but the balcony seating area is a conference room with windows looking out into
the courtroom. There were three original courtrooms on the fifth floor that were
not restored because they didn't need them and were turned into offices instead."
- Terry
Jeanson |
| "Ceiling skylight
and balcony in the north side courtroom. The plaster patterns in the bow-front
balcony were recreated from historical photographs." - Terry
Jeanson |
| "Since no photographs
or drawings of the original dome skylight were ever found, the design was based
on similar skylight designs of the period and uses the colors from the tile floor
patterns. The large plaster capital moldings seen on each side of the skylight
were recreated using motifs found in the adjacent wall moldings." - Terry
Jeanson |
| "Marble in the
rotunda. Replacement marble for the interior came from the same quarry near Tate,
Georgia that supplied the marble for the construction in 1909-10. Cherokee marble
was used on the stair treads and Creole marble was used on vertical surfaces,
such as walls, columns and stair risers." - Terry
Jeanson |
Courthouse
View during Main Street Construction
TE Photo 2002 |
The
1910 Harris County Courthouse as it appeared in 1955
Photo courtesy THC |
| Postcard
dated 1921
TE
Postcard Archives |
| Another
postcard of the 1910 courthouse
TE Postcard Archives |
| A
detail repeated above many entrances
TE Photo 6-01 |
The
1884 Harris County Courthouse |
| "[The] fourth
courthouse began in 1883 and was completed by 1884. Designed by Galveston architect
Edward J. Duhamel..., the county’s fourth courthouse was a grand three-story Victorian
style building with projecting bays on a cruciform floor plan and a central spire.
The cost of the building was $100,000. Sometime later, the tower was removed and
by the early twentieth century the building was condemned due to its deterioration."
- Terry
Jeanson |
The
1884 Harris County Courthouse
Courtesy THC |
| The
1851 Harris County Courthouse |
| "In October
of 1851, [the] second courthouse was completed and dedicated. Costing $15,000
and designed by F.J. Rothaas, it was a two-story brick building with central entrances
on each side and a central domed cupola. Unfortunately, the walls and foundation
developed cracks and the building had to be demolished in 1860." - Terry
Jeanson |
The
1851 Harris County Courthouse
Courtesy THC |
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