Courthouse
History by Terry
Jeanson:
McMULLEN COUNTY
COURTHOUSE HISTORY
McMullen
County was established from parts of Bexar,
Atascosa, and Live
Oak counties in 1858 and named for Irish empresario John McMullen,
who failed in his attempts to settle the McMullen
County area in the late 1820s, but founded the first San Patricio
County seat of San
Patricio in 1831. In 1858, settlers in McMullen
County built some dwellings and roads around where Leoncita
Creek and the Frio River came together and formed the town of Rio
Frio, later named Dog Town in the early 1860s. (One explanation
of this name holds that drunken cowboys on a shooting spree left
about fifteen dead dogs on the street, but the name could also be
attributed to the number of dogs used in the area to herd sheep
and cattle.) The name of the town was changed again to Colfax in
1871. This was the county’s first permanent settlement. In 1862,
the county was organized but later abandoned because of the rampant
crime in the county. By the early 1870s, many ranches had been established,
but continuous violence and criminal activity kept most people away.
After an earlier attempt in 1873, McMullen County was organized
again in 1877. That same year, Colfax was chosen as the county seat
but the name was changed to Tilden, in honor of Samuel Jones Tilden
(nicknamed “Whispering Sammy,”) who ran for President on the Democratic
ticket in 1876 and lost to Rutherford B. Hayes in one of the most
controversial U.S. Presidential elections.
The first courthouse for McMullen
County was built in 1877. (The Texas Historical Commission lists
the date for the first courthouse as ca. 1870.) It was a two-story
wood frame building with a hipped roof and a staircase that led
to a second floor porch. This courthouse burned down in 1929 and
was replaced by a second courthouse in 1930 which is still in use
today. The second courthouse was designed by Beeville
architect William Charles Stephenson, Jr. in a Classical Revival
style with Mission style influences. The rectangular structure is
built of brick with a limestone water table, window lintels and
sills. The entrances on the north, south and west sides have pedimented
porticos supported by fluted Doric columns. The hipped roof is covered
with red clay tiles and has curvilinear dormers in the center of
each side. The building’s original corbeled chimneys have been removed
and an addition was built to the rear (east side) of the building
in 1964. The courthouse received further renovations in 1998.
- Terry
Jeanson, December 4, 2014
Sources:
County history and biographical information from The Handbook of
Texas Online.
County and Courthouse history from the TXGen Web Project
McMullen County History by Renee Pierce Smelley at
http://rootsweb.ancestry.com/ ~txmcmull/history/countyhistory.htm,
the Texas Historical Commission’s Texas Historic Sites Atlas at
http://atlas.thc.state.tx.us/shell-county.htm, and
The Courthouses of Texas by Mavis P.Kelsey Sr. and Donald H. Dyal,
2nd edition, 2007.
|
HOME
