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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
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Anybody Got
a Match?
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Page 3
But
arson was hard to beat for reliable courthousetrashing. When the courthouse
wars heated up, so did a lot of courthouses. I counted 106 Texas courthouses
destroyed or badly damaged by fire from the first in 1848 to the latest
in 2001. Ironically, those courthouses were in Jasper
and Newton Counties,
respectively, Southeast Texas neighbors that are almost geographically
identical and are named for Revolutionary War heroes and friends John
Newton and William Jasper. The two Yankee soldiers enjoyed such
celebrity that 60 counties and cities around the country are named
for them - usually a town being named for one and its county for the
other.
If 106 courthouse fires in 254 counties
sounds excessive, it's worse than it sounds. Texas had as few as 24
counties and not more than 150 during most of those fires. Too, it
had frame buildings, open fireplaces, volunteer fire departments with
horse-driven wagons and, eventually, uncertain electric wiring. All
played parts in the holocausts visited on those 106 courthouses, along
with arsonists.
The time line on the fires indicates the intricate stone buildings
weren't just for looks. After 78 courthouses suffered varying degrees
of fire damage in the last 52 years of the Nineteenth Century, only
27 had fires in the Twentieth. Trace the improvement directly to the
granite, limestone, sandstone and marble that came into fashion in
the late 1800s - the era that architectural historians refer to by
the jaw-breaking title of "The Golden Age of Texas Courthouse Architecture."
So while stone structures beat the blazes around town squares, at
least six courthouse fires were definitely arson. My guess is that
six is a conservative number.
Not all of the intentional fires were political in nature, 'though
moving the county seat was an appealing option in several cases. Which
brings us to one of my favorite Texas historical figures, Gus Hooks.
Maybe you never heard of Gus Hooks. That doesn't necessarily indicate
that you're weak on your Texas history, but it does prove that you
weren't a Hardin County
lawman in the 1870s. In addition to his attention-getting antics around
the sheriff's office, Gus was the acknowledged fastest runner in Hardin
County. The courthouse at Hardin burned one night after Gus was
spotted in the neighborhood. Like everybody else in town, the sheriff
immediately thought of Gus. He saddled up and galloped the five miles
to the Hooks' place in the Big Thicket, where he found Gus already
in bed and asleep. Fast asleep. That discovery led the folks in Hardin
to a couple of conclusions - a few figured that maybe Gus didn't do
it after all, a larger consensus was that the sheriff needed a faster
horse. Whatever the cause of the fire in Hardin,
Kountze became the
county seat and has held onto it ever since.
I don't know about you, but I get a warm feeling when I picture Gus
Hooks sprinting through the pines and bois d' arcs in the dark of
night, his backside reflecting a big fire back down the road in Hardin.
Several courthouses survived fires lit in hopes of destroying indictments
or cattle brands. In Texas, cattle brands are registered by county
rather than statewide, so you have to go to the courthouse to identify
someone's brand - or to destroy any trace of it, in case you're heading
in the opposite direction with a herd of rustled Herefords. |
 |
The 1896 Denton
County Courthouse
Postcard courtesy www.rootsweb.com/ %7Etxpstcrd/ |
One of the most
persistent alleged torchers was a close friend of the infamous bad
guy, Sam
Bass. Denton's
picturesque, if not fireproof, courthouse burned in 1875. County officials
were sure Sam's pal lit the fire in an attempt to destroy an indictment,
but they didn't have any proof to present in court. County records
were moved to a church until a new courthouse could be built. When
the church burned, too, they collared the highly motivated arsonist.
Both he and the Denton courthouse fires came to an abrupt, welcomed
end.
Anderson County once boasted a tall, graceful courthouse designed
by the famed Wesley Clarke Dodson. It lasted just 26 years, then fell
victim to arsonists in 1912. John Ballard McDonald, a former Anderson
County judge, civic leader and courthouse pigeon fighter, explained,
"A young guy was indicted for something and a pal of his down at the
pool hall convinced him they could burn down the courthouse and destroy
the indictment. It was bad advice - they burned down the courthouse,
but they didn't destroy the indictment."
Page 5
What's in a Name?
The Artists in Brick, Stone and Mortar
If
the clerks who filled in indictments had the spelling skills of early
Texas Legislatures, all those indictments would have been thrown out
on technicalities. Remember that red-letter day of August 21, 1876
when Texas named 56 new counties? It had a downside ...
Page 5 › |
©
Bill Morgan
June
9, 2005
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