Site of the First Lamb County Courthouse

Duane's take

The way I tell it, this comes straight from the official marker for the Site of the First Lamb County Courthouse, out in Lamb County, Texas. Now settle in, because this story takes a while to get started, and that's kind of the whole point. Lamb County was created in 1876.

That part happened quick enough. But here's the thing about a county on the raw edge of the Texas plains. You can draw lines on a map all day long, but you can't organize a county government until you've got people.

Specifically, twenty-one qualified voters. Lamb County sat there, officially existing, officially empty of enough souls to matter legally, for thirty-two years. Nineteen-oh-eight.

That's when the count finally hit twenty-one, and Lamb County got down to business. And when it did, the citizens didn't wait around for someone else to build them a courthouse. They donated the labor themselves.

What they put up was a nine-room frame building, and for its time and place, that was something to be proud of. The first county officials took their posts inside those walls. H.

R. Miller as judge. Four commissioners covering the precincts: J.

A. Hooper for Precinct Number One, Claude E. Halsell for Number Two, G.

M. Arnett for Number Three, and Walter Sullivan for Number Four. Then you had Herb Dickenson as sheriff, George Gallaway as clerk, Fred Schreier as treasurer, and Luther Williams as assessor.

A full crew for a brand new county government, in a building the people themselves had built with their own hands. That building served Lamb County faithfully. Until 1922, when it burned.

Now the marker doesn't linger on that, and neither will I, but a courthouse that the community built from donated labor, gone. What happened next, though, was that a new courthouse rose on the same site, this time of brick and concrete, built between 1922 and 1923. Sturdier materials, a harder lesson learned.

That courthouse stood as the seat of Lamb County until 1946, when an election changed everything. The county seat was removed to Littlefield. So this spot, this patch of ground, held all of it: the frame building the people raised themselves, the fire that took it, the brick-and-concrete successor, and finally, the vote that said, we're movin' on.

Thirty-two years waiting to exist. A courthouse built by hand. A courthouse lost to flame.

Another one raised from the ashes. And then, one election later, history packed up and headed down the road to Littlefield. That's Lamb County for you.

What the marker says

Created in 1876, Lamb County was unorganized until it could muster 21 qualified voters, 1908. Citizens donated labor for first 9-room frame courthouse, which served until it burned in 1922. First county officials were: judge, H. R. Miller; commissioners, J. A. Hooper (Precinct No. 1), Claude E. Halsell (No. 2), G. M. Arnett (No. 3), Walter Sullivan (No. 4); sheriff, Herb Dickenson; clerk, George Gallaway; treasurer, Fred Schreier; assessor, Luther Williams. A new courthouse of brick and concrete was built here, 1922-23. After a 1946 election, the county seat was removed to Littlefield. (1972)