Duval County Courthouse

The Venado, a Coahuiltecan hunting and gathering people, roamed this brush country in the 1700s until Apache and Comanche pressure from the north and Spanish ranching from the south broke up their world. Duval County was organized in 1876, and San Diego became its seat. A fire on August 11, 1914 burned the earlier courthouse. The present one, a Classical Revival building of red brick designed by a Fort Worth firm, was finished in 1916. The Austin firm of Page Brothers designed a rear addition in 1938.

The building is the stage for one of Texas's longest-running political machines. Archer Parr, who came to Duval County in 1882, won a seat on the commissioners' court in 1898, and after the 1907 assassination of the Democratic chief John Cleary he took command. On May 18, 1912, amid a challenge from the party chairman C. M. Robinson, three Anglo men shot dead three Mexican American county officials on the courthouse grounds: Candelario Sáenz, Antonio Anguiano and Pedro Eznal. Parr was in the state senate from 1914 to 1934. Voters who were Mexican American received county jobs and small payments, and the Handbook of Texas describes the system as paternalism, corruption and coercion.

His son George Parr, called the Duke of Duval, held the machine until it ended in 1975. The courthouse is a working county building, so view it from the street and respect its business hours. A historical marker stands beside the steps.