Courthouses of Palo Pinto County

Palo Pinto's courthouse has an author the plaque leaves out. Texas Escapes credits the 1940 building to the architects Preston M. Geren and M. A. Howell and calls its style Texas Renaissance, plain and rural rather than grand. The Handbook of Texas dates the sandstone predecessor to 1881, a year before the plaque's 1882. Around the square the county's early public life ran on a stage line from Fort Griffin to Weatherford that crossed the Brazos at Oaks Crossing, and on the Palo Pinto County Star, which began printing in 1876.

What the plaque says

Courthouses of Palo Pinto County Palo Pinto County was created in 1856 and named for a creek south of here that was perhaps named by Spanish explorers of the Brazos River Valley. The county seat of 320 acres was surveyed at its geographical center and was originally named Golconda. A court session in 1857 called for the first courthouse to be built of wood frame construction, with two doors and three windows. The contract was awarded to a bid of $300. Shortly after, in 1859, the town name was changed to Palo Pinto. In 1882, just after the Texas Legislature allowed counties to issue bonds for new courthouses, a large sandstone structure was built. It cost $35,000 and exhibited Second Empire styling with a central clock tower. A two story sandstone annex was added in 1906 and connected to the courthouse by an iron bridge. Sandstone for the buildings was quarried south of the city. In 1940 these buildings were demolished and a new courthouse was erected by Work Projects Administration workers. The reinforced-concrete structure featured subtle classical detail and was clad with some of the sandstone from the old buildings. It was completed in 1942 at a cost of $250,000. (1986)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lake Mineral Wells State Park and Trailway — 15 mi
  A Cross Timbers park on the old Camp Wolters grounds, built around a 1922 water-supply lake for a spa town, with Penitentiary Hollow's rock climbing and a 20-mile trailway.
• Old Post Office Museum and Art Center — 29 mi
  Graham's 1936 Art Moderne post office, with a New Deal mural by Alexandre Hogue inside, now the free museum of Young County in the town where the Texas cattle raisers first organized.

More markers nearby

• Old County Jail — steps away
• Palo Pinto Cemetery — 0.4 mi
• Palo Pinto County — 1.6 mi
• George Webb Slaughter — 5.1 mi