Lynn County Courthouse

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Lynn County Courthouse. Now, Lynn County didn't just appear out of thin air. The Texas legislature created it in 1876, though the county didn't get itself organized until 1903, when Tahoka was named the county seat.

And once you have a county seat, you need a courthouse, so a two-story frame structure went up on this very site and did the job for a good while. But citizens have a way of deciding they deserve something grander, and in July of 1915 they approved a bond election for exactly that. Enter two men with a plan.

William M. Rice designed the new building, and A.Z. Rogers built it.

What they were putting up was no modest little affair. Three full stories, a complete basement underneath, courtrooms, office space, and a county jail all tucked inside. They finished it in December of 1916, and when the dust settled, Tahoka had itself a reinforced concrete building faced in red brick and cast stone veneer.

The style is classical revival, and the architects meant every bit of it. Symmetrical facades repeated on opposite sides, porticos dressed with Ionic columns. The whole thing is balanced, deliberate, and built to say that Lynn County had arrived and intended to stay.

Stand in front of it today and you're lookin' at the same statement Rice and Rogers made in 1916. Some courthouses just hold court. This one makes an argument.

What the marker says

In 1876 the Texas legislature created Lynn county, which organized in 1903 with Tahoka as county seat. A two-story frame structure on this site served as courthouse until citizens approved a bond election for the current building in Jul. 1915. Designed by William M. Rice and built by A.Z. Rogers, the three-story building with full basement housed courtrooms, office space and the county jail. Completed in Dec. 1916, the reinforced concrete building with red brick and cast stone veneer exhibits classical revival style in symmetrical facades repeated on opposite sides and porticos with ionic columns.