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Old 04-12-2015, 08:06 PM
 
Location: North Texas
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Texas has 254 counties, what are some of your favorite courthouses you've seen? They can be active or inactive, historical buildings.

I'll just list 2 for now:
Wise County - Decatur:


Denton County - Denton: (inactive)
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Old 04-13-2015, 04:32 AM
 
Location: Kaufman County, Texas
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Parker County
Hill County
Ellis County
Tarrant County
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Old 04-13-2015, 06:43 AM
 
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Hopkins County Courthouse in Sulphur Springs
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Old 04-13-2015, 07:05 AM
 
Location: Sacramento Mtns of NM
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This is a near impossible task. Texas has so many "outstanding" courthouses. It would be much easier, IMO, to pick the ugliest ones.

Here is a great web site that has every county courthouse in Texas pictured:

http://www.texascourthousetrail.com/menu.htm

There are also several picture books published over the years that catalog the best ones.

One of the latest such books:

Quote:
Michael Andrews, author of the book "Historic Texas Courthouses" (2006), is a trustee emeritus of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
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Old 04-13-2015, 11:52 AM
 
Location: North Texas
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Quote:
Originally Posted by joqua View Post
This is a near impossible task. Texas has so many "outstanding" courthouses. It would be much easier, IMO, to pick the ugliest ones.

Here is a great web site that has every county courthouse in Texas pictured:

http://www.texascourthousetrail.com/menu.htm

There are also several picture books published over the years that catalog the best ones.

One of the latest such books:

I know, these are a lot of small towns' own attempts at "state capitols" and it's incredibly hard to find an ugly one. But there's a lot of them, so I figured no one had to been to all 254 - although getting a picture in person of all of them would be a great travel idea - and they'd only list a handful of pretty ones to keep this thread going.

I know if you were to find some ugly ones, they'd probably be in the smaller, poorer counties.
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Old 04-13-2015, 12:11 PM
 
Location: Warrior Country
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Came back from Corpus last month (jogged to the east 30 miles & then drove up on US 183). Drove by & made stops by each of these county courthouses (from south to north) & had a couple of meals at nearby cafes:

- Goliad/Goliad County. Population under 3K, lots of history & a beautiful downtown area. (This one is my favorite)





- Cuero/Dewitt Co. - Pretty courthouse, but the town is getting a little junky with all the Eagleford activity.





- Gonzales/Gonzales Co. - Again, lots of history, nice park outside of town, good looking courthouse.




- Lockhart/Caldwell Co. - Beautiful Courthouse (cool coloring). Not as pretty a square as Goliad, but it does have the bonus of having 3 world famous BBQ joints within walking distance. (& only 35 min. south of Austin).
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Old 04-13-2015, 12:34 PM
 
Location: Kaufman County, Texas
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Sadly, the Gillespie County (Fredericksburg) courthouse is pretty ugly. 1960s architecture.
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Old 04-18-2015, 12:41 AM
 
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Austin, Texas county courthouse would probably rate as the ugliest in the state.
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Old 04-18-2015, 06:17 AM
 
Location: Kaufman County, Texas
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So would Ector County in Odessa.
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Old 04-18-2015, 07:10 AM
 
Location: Sacramento Mtns of NM
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I believe that those courthouses pre-dating WWI are likely to be the ones that people find most attractive. Once "modern" architecture took over, simplicity and utilitarian became the watch words and aesthetics went downhill.

Here is a good example of what I mean - El Paso County Courthouse. Some will likely think it's lovely, but I'll take the old fashioned look any day.

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