Throckmorton County Courthouse

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Throckmorton County has a story that starts with a name, stretches across decades, and ends up carved right into sandstone. The Texas Legislature created Throckmorton County in 1858, named for a pioneer doctor by the name of William E.

Throckmorton. Now, created is one thing. Organized is another.

The county sat there, named and waiting, until 1879 before it got itself properly organized. That is a long time to be a county in name only. When things did get movin, a man named F.E.

Conrad donated the land for the town square and went ahead and built a frame courthouse right on this very site. Frame. Meaning wood.

Meaning temporary, in the way that frontier solutions so often are. But the people of Throckmorton County had bigger ideas. By 1890 they brought in the firm of Martin, Byrne and Johnston to design something worth keeping.

Construction ran from 1890 to 1893, with J.L. Dewees and Jacob Rath doing the building. What rose up on that donated ground was a two-story Italianate-style courthouse, and friend, it was not modest about it.

Polychromatic walls of quarried sandstone, quoins at the corners, pilasters running up the face, horizontal bands pulling it all together, arched doors and arched windows, and up top, a mansard roof dressed out with brackets and pediments and a square cupola standing watch over the whole county seat. That building said: we are here, and we intend to stay. Then in 1938, a matching annex joined it, keeping the original company without trying to outshine it.

One frame courthouse replaced by sandstone ambition, one annex added with care. Throckmorton County built slow, but it built to last.

What the marker says

The Texas Legislature created Throckmorton County - named for pioneer doctor William E. Throckmorton - in 1858, with organization delayed until 1879. F.E. Conrad donated land for the town square and built a frame courthouse on this site. The firm of Martin, Byrne and Johnston designed this 1890-93 courthouse built by J.L. Dewees andJacob Rath. The two-story Italianate-style building features polychromatic walls of quarried sandstone, quoins, pilasters, horizontal bands, arched doors and windows and a mansard roof with brackets, pediments and a square cupola. A matching annex was built in 1938.