Ellis County Courthouse

This is the fourth courthouse on the Waxahachie square, after an 1850 log cabin, a frame building of 1854 and a yellow limestone building of about 1870. The county accepted the present one in 1897 at a cost of about $130,000. James Riely Gordon designed it, and a salesman, Otto Kroeger, sold the county Gordon's stock plan. A new commissioners court stopped the work in 1895 and hired a Fort Worth firm to supervise him.

Gordon specified gray granite, rose pink granite, Burnet County limestone and Pecos red sandstone. Twenty-one carved stone faces decorate the porches. The county's own history credits the carving to Harry Herley, whose stonework was subcontracted to the Dallas firm of Theodore Beilharz. Some people tell a story that the faces record an unrequited love between Herley and Mable Frame, a boarding-house keeper's daughter. The county's history answers that such faces are common on the European Romanesque buildings this style came from.

On the north entrance are what locals call the dueling cornerstones: the commissioners court ordered one, Kroeger bought the other, and the names of both the old and new commissioners are carved there. The Texas Historical Commission's restoration was rededicated in October 2002. The courthouse is still a working county building. Read the state marker, then enter by the accessible ramp. A bronze statue of Richard Ellis by Attilio Piccirilli stands on the southwest side.