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THE JEFFERSON
COUNTY COURTHOUSE
County
Seat - Beaumont, Texas
Date - 1931
Architect - Fred C. Stone & A. Babin
Style - Moderne. 14 Stories
Material - Stone and brick
Location - 1149 Pearl St. at Franklin, Beaumont
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"The
ultimate potential of the skyscraper to serve as an icon of Texas
government was demonstrated in Beaumont in 1931." Professor Jay C.
Henry in Architecture in Texas 1895 - 1945
TE photo 9-04 |
High-rise
courthouses are a rare item in Texas. If you counted them on one hand;
you'd still have a few fingers left over. Just when tall buildings
came into vogue, money was tight and Art Deco was a little too flashy
for counties wanting to modernize their courthouse. Art Deco might
appeal to Dallasites, but most local governments felt that county
business should be conducted under no-nonsense clocktowers and flagpoles
- and not under the gaze of fancy streamlined eagles.
Jefferson County has always enjoyed going a little against the grain.
Besides their tall courthouse, they are also the only county seat
in Texas to have erected a completely separate sub-courthouse (in
Port Arthur). Other counties hit
by the Depression had to forgo courthouse replacements, but Beaumont's
oil reserves made the future look bright and Beaumonters were eager
to add to the impressive collection of downtown buildings they had
been busily erecting in the twenties.
They may have looked eastward to Baton Rouge at what would become
Huey P. Long's beautiful monument to himself (AKA The Louisiana State
Capitol) or they may have looked westward at the plans for the still-to-be-built
San
Jacinto monument. |
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Deco Texano
TE photo 9-04 |
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Deco
Eagle Detail
TE photo 9-04 |
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Main
Entrance
TE photo 9-04 |
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Deco details of the courthouse include carved limestone vignettes
of lumbermen, farmers, oilmen and cowboys at work. Work was a wonderful
thing to celebrate now that so many people had the time to sit around
and miss it. |
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One
of the flagpole bases.
TE photo 9-04 |
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Details
and Texture
TE photo 9-04 |
The
500 acres that comprise downtown Beaumont are sprinkled with Deco
details. A few block away the First National Bank Building (c.1937)
on Orleans Street has more work-related carvings, and the Federal
building has artistic longhorn skulls carved over all entrances. The
Kyle Block
(the 200 block of Orleans Street) is a rare example of Zigzag Deco.
The closest design to the brick Jefferson County courthouse could
very well be the much shorter stone courthouse
for Eastland County (Eastland, Texas). |
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The
1893 Jefferson County Courthouse
designed by architect Eugene
Heiner
Postcard
courtesy rootsweb.com/
~txgenweb// postcards/Index.html |
| The regrettable
part of the Jefferson County Courthouse saga is that it replaced a
building designed by prolific courthouse architect Eugene Heiner.
Of the many courthouses designed by Heiner in the 19th Century, only
his 1897
Lavaca County courthouse in Hallettsville is still standing. |
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The
Courthouse as it appeared in 1939
Photo Courtesy TxDoT |
| Text
from the historical marker in front of the courthouse: "The first
county building constructed at this site was a jailhouse completed
in 1838, two years after the organization of Jefferson County. Located
on land acquired from Nancy Tevis, a pioneer settler of the area,
it also housed county offices and courts. When the commissioners court
outgrew the facility, sessions were held in private homes. The first
courthouse here was completed in 1854. Built by John A. Beaumont,
it was a two-story square structure surrounded by a six-foot picket
fence. Baptist and Methodist congregations conducted Sunday services
in the building and during the Civil War it was leased to D. T. Inglehart,
a Confederate surgeon, for use as a hospital. A second courthouse
was constructed in 1893, twelve years after the incorporation of Beaumont.
Designed by E. T. Heiner, it was a three-story red brick building
with white trim. Following the area oil boom of the 1920s it proved
inadequate to meet the needs of the growing population and was replaced
by the present brick courthouse in 1931. Designed by Fred Stone and
A. Babin, the fourteen-story building features art deco styling in
the use of sculpted ornamentation and marble interior work." |
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Even
from the tracks, the building retains its dignity
TE Photo 9-04 |
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Cow skull and oil derrick detail
TE photo 9-04 |
| In
comparing this courthouse to the famous Nebraska State Capitol, Professor
Henry states: "The detailing is skillfully handled to emphasize the
vertical proportions, but this courthouse seems more related to commercial
skyscrapers of the late 1920s [than to the Nebraska Capitol Building].
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The
1931 Jefferson County Courthouse
Postcard
courtesy rootsweb.com/
~txgenweb// postcards/Index.html |
| Jefferson
County has had four courthouses: 1838, 1855, 1893 and the present
1931 courthouse. |
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