Edwards County Courthouse

Duane's take

The official marker outside the Edwards County Courthouse is the seed of this story. Here's how Duane tells it. Now, when you're talkin' about buildings that have seen some things, you want to start with the bones.

And the bones of the Edwards County Courthouse are somethin' else entirely: rusticated limestone, quarried right here in Southwest Texas, shaped and stacked into what they call a Late Victorian structure. This isn't some imported fancy. The stone came from the land itself.

The contractors who put it all together were Davey and Schott, out of Kerrville, and they finished their work in 1891. You let that sink in. Eighteen ninety-one.

That courthouse has been standin' on this ground through droughts and decades and the full turning of more than a century. But here's where the story takes a turn that'll make you go quiet. In 1927, a storm came through.

Not just any storm; the kind of storm that gets remembered. The kind that killed seventy people. Seventy souls.

The roof of that limestone courthouse took damage in that same blow. And when the storm passed and the grief settled, they restored it. Put it back together.

That building had witnessed devastation, and it endured. That's the thing about stone quarried from your own ground (it doesn't leave easy).

What the marker says

Late Victorian structure of rusticated limestone, quarried in Southwest Texas. Contractors were Davey and Schott, of Kerrville, 1891. Roof was damaged by 1927 storm that killed 70 people. It was afterward restored. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1973