DUANE
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Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna pass it along to you. Hill County got itself organized in 1853, and if you know anything about Texas counties, you know that organizing means you're gonna need a place to do the county's business. Well, Hill County went through courthouses the way some folks go through boots.
By the time 1890 rolled around, they were already on their fourth. Fourth. And the third one to sit right there in Hillsboro.
The one before it, a brick building that had gone up in 1874, wasn't gonna cut it anymore. Hill County had bigger ideas. So they brought in contractors Lovell, Miller and Hood, out of Brownsville, and those men built something in rusticated limestone that people were going to be talking about for a good long while.
The architect behind the vision was a Waco man named W. C. Dodson, who had designed a number of public buildings and clearly knew how to make a statement.
Dodson planned what the marker calls modified French Second Empire styling, and if you're lookin' at it right now from the road, you understand exactly what that means. The courthouse rises three stories. Three stories of that pale limestone, cut and fitted and meant to last.
And then, just when you think you've taken in the whole picture, your eyes keep going up. Because sitting on top of all that is a clock tower that climbs seven stories into the Hill County sky. Seven.
The building is three, the tower is seven. Lovell, Miller and Hood finished it in 1890, and W. C.
Dodson's design has been standing watch over Hillsboro ever since. Some buildings just refuse to be the last word on the subject. This one went ahead and became it.
What the marker says
The fourth courthouse for Hill County (organized in 1853) and the third one located in Hillsboro, this impressive landmark replaced a brick court building erected in 1874. Contractors Lovell, Miller and Hood of Brownsville built this rusticated limestone structure in 1890. Waco architect W. C. Dodson, who designed a number of public buildings, planned the modified French Second Empire styling. The three-story courthouse is topped by a seven-story clock tower. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1964