Wise County Courthouse
by Joan Carroll
Title
Wise County Courthouse
Artist
Joan Carroll
Medium
Photograph - Digital Photograph
Description
Texas has 254 counties, many of which have wonderful old courthouses sitting on central town squares. The Wise County Courthouse in Decatur TX is just one of those courthouses and I visited on a quiet and foggy Saturday morning. Wise County has had four courthouses, two of which burned. The first Courthouse was a small structure, sixteen feet square, weather boarded with four inch Hack-berry boards (cut in the West Fork of the Trinity River bottoms and shaved with a drawing knife), roofed with two foot clapboards and floored with cottonwood puncheons. The second seat of law, located on the square, was a large square, two story, frame building, forty feet by forty feet, with halls running through the bottom floor in the four directions making four rooms downstairs and one huge room upstairs, which was used as the courtroom. On the night of November 26, 1881, this building burned, thought to be arson. The third Courthouse was built on the northeast corner of the square, at a cost of $50,000.00. It has never been clear as to why it was not placed on the square. For many years a guard was hired to stay in the courthouse to "get the records out" in case of fire, bit this practice had been eliminated quite some time before it burned about 5:30 on the morning of January 8, 1895, also thought to be arson according to legend. The present Courthouse, located in the middle of the square was constructed at a cost of $110,000.00, which was thought by many to be excessive, and the officials were not re-elected. The stone was pre-cut and each piece numbered then shipped from Burnet County, Texas. The stones were raised by a windlass pulled by donkeys walking in a circle drawing the rope tight. The building completed in 1896, is of pink granite with interior of Vermont marble, and has been pronounced architecturally perfect. First court was held in the new building in December 1896. The Courthouse is on the National Register, and carries the medallion and plaque attesting to its historical value in the state of Texas.
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June 1st, 2014
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