Shackelford County Courthouse

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker says about the Shackelford County Courthouse. Now, some buildings just sit there. And then there are buildings that seem to dare you to look away.

The Shackelford County Courthouse in Albany is one of the second kind, and the story of how it came to stand there is worth every mile of road that brought you to it. The courthouse was built in 1883 and 1884, drawn up from plans by J. E.

Flanders of Dallas, an architect who had his hands in several other Texas courthouses during that same era. So Flanders knew what he was doing. The man on the ground, making sure every stone went where it was supposed to go, was Edgar Rye of Albany, serving as construction superintendent.

And here is where the story gets a little unexpected. The walls of that courthouse were raised by kilted Scottish Masons. You heard that right.

Kilted. The stone they worked with was quarried just a few miles southwest of town, so the land itself went into the walls. And underneath all of it, the foundations rest two feet deep on what the marker calls natural concrete.

That is caliche, the pale hardpan that runs under so much of West Texas ground. Now, somebody budgeted this project at twenty-seven thousand dollars. That was the number.

That was the plan. The final cost came in at forty-nine thousand, four hundred and thirty-three dollars and seventy-five cents. Not a round number.

Not even close to the original one. The people of Shackelford County got a considerably grander courthouse than the budget had imagined. And they wanted more.

At the public's request, a clock tower was added. Because apparently, once you have kilted Masons raising stone walls over natural concrete, you might as well put a clock on top so everybody in the county knows exactly what time it is. That courthouse has been standing since 1884, keeping its own kind of time.

What the marker says

Built 1883-84 from plans by J. E. Flanders of Dallas, architect for several other 1880s Texas courthouses. Edgar Rye of Albany was construction superintendent. Kilted Scottish Masons erected the walls of stone quarried a few miles southwest of town. The foundations rest two feet deep on "natural concrete" (caliche). Budgeted at $27,000.00; final cost was $49,433.75. Clock tower was added at public's request. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1962