Jim Wells County Courthouse

The county's most famous vote was counted in Alice. After the Democratic Senate runoff of August 28, 1948, Coke Stevenson led Lyndon Johnson by 210 votes. Then, on September 3, 203 more ballots surfaced from Alice's Precinct 13, nearly all for Johnson, who won by 87 votes statewide. Judge T. Whitfield Davidson tried to block the result, but Justice Hugo Black ruled that the party decided its nominee, and the Supreme Court upheld him on October 7. In 1977 election judge Luis Salas said George Parr had ordered him to write the last ballots.

What the plaque says

Jim Wells County Courthouse Governor Oscar B. Colquitt signed legislation creating Jim Wells County on March 11, 1911. Taken from territory formerly a part of Nueces County, the new county was named for prominent Brownsville attorney and business leader James B. Wells, Jr. (1850-1923). The first county elections were held two months later, and in January 1912 the citizens of the new county approved a bond election to finance the construction of a courthouse and jail. The county commissioners hired San Antonio architect Atlee B. Ayers to design the courthouse. The laying of the cornerstone on July 25, 1912, drew a crowd of more than 2,000 people. Celebration activities included performances by the Alice Concert Band and the Alice Symphony Club, as well as a barbecue, rodeo events, and baseball game. The discovery of oil in Jim Wells County in 1938 led to increased economic development and a population boom. The courthouse was remodeled in 1948-1949, and annexes later were built nearby. Although its original appearance has been altered, the Jim Wells County Courthouse stands as a significant structure in the county's history. It continues to serve as the center of county government. (1992)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Duval County Courthouse — 10 mi
  A red-brick Classical Revival courthouse of 1916 in San Diego, the seat of a county governed for decades by the Parr family machine.
• King Ranch Visitor Center — 19 mi
  The bus-tour gate to a working ranch of about 825,000 acres, founded on Santa Gertrudis Creek in 1853 and worked from the start by the Kineños, families from Cruillas in Tamaulipas.
• Lipantitlán State Historic Site — 21 mi
  Five undeveloped acres on the Nueces named for the Lipan Apaches who camped here, where Mexico built an earth-and-rail fort that Texans took early in the Revolution.
• Lake Corpus Christi State Park — 25 mi
  A lake park in the South Texas brush country above Mathis, on a reservoir of the Nueces, with a Civilian Conservation Corps refectory and more than 200 bird species.

More markers nearby

• Alice — steps away
• Jim Wells County — 1.0 mi
• Alonso S. Perales — 1.5 mi
• Archelaus Bynum Dodson — 1.5 mi