The Anderson County Courthouse is an historic

courthouse A courthouse or court house is a building that is home to a local court of law and often the regional county government as well, although this is not the case in some larger cities. The term is common in North America. In most other English-spe ...

located at 1 Public Square in

Palestine __NOTOC__ Palestine may refer to: * State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia * Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia * Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East ...

Anderson County, Texas Anderson County is a county in the U.S. state of Texas. Located within East Texas, its county seat is Palestine. As of the 2020 United States census, the population of Anderson County was 57,922. Anderson County comprises the Palestine micropol ...

. The Beaux-Arts style building was built atop the highest hill in Palestine.

Austin Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city ...

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

Charles Henry Page Charles Henry Page (1876–1957) was an American architect. He and his brother Louis Charles Page (1883–1934) founded the Texas firm of Page Brothers, Architects (also known as C. H. Page & Bro.). The firm achieved great recognition when they w ...

and Louis Charles Page designed the structure. It was built in 1913 and 1914 and dedicated on December 20, 1914, at a cost of approximately $250,000. Anderson County was created by the

Texas Legislature The Texas Legislature is the state legislature of the US state of Texas. It is a bicameral body composed of a 31-member Senate and a 150-member House of Representatives. The state legislature meets at the Capitol in Austin. It is a powerful ...

on March 24, 1846, and named for former

Republic of Texas The Republic of Texas ( es, República de Tejas) was a sovereign state in North America that existed from March 2, 1836, to February 19, 1846, that bordered Mexico, the Republic of the Rio Grande in 1840 (another breakaway republic from Mex ...

Vice-President Kenneth L. Anderson. The first Anderson County Courthouse was a one-story wood frame structure built in 1847. It was replaced by a two-story brick courthouse in 1856. The third courthouse, built of brick and completed in 1886, by noted Texas courthouse architect

Wesley Clark Dodson Wesley Clark Dodson (1829–1914), most often known as W.C. Dodson, was an architect of Waco, Texas. Dodson fought for the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. He traveled to Galveston, Texas from Alabama and later mo ...

(1829-1914) of

Waco Waco ( ) is the county seat of McLennan County, Texas, United States. It is situated along the Brazos River and I-35, halfway between Dallas and Austin. The city had a 2020 population of 138,486, making it the 22nd-most populous city in the st ...

. It was destroyed by

arson Arson is the crime of willfully and deliberately setting fire to or charring property. Although the act of arson typically involves buildings, the term can also refer to the intentional burning of other things, such as motor vehicles, wat ...

in 1913 purportedly to destroy incriminating documents. The current Anderson County Courthouse is the fourth structure to serve as the seat of Anderson County government. The courthouse uses a Beaux-Arts bi-axial arrangement with a rotunda crowned by an inner

art glass Art glass is a subset of glass art, this latter covering the whole range of art made from glass. Art glass normally refers only to pieces made since the mid-19th century, and typically to those purely made as sculpture or decorative art, with ...

dome with an outer dome surmounted by

Lady Justice Lady Justice ( la, Iustitia) is an allegorical personification of the moral force in judicial systems. Her attributes are scales, a sword and sometimes a blindfold. She often appears as a pair with Prudentia. Lady Justice originates from the ...

. The building is three stories with a raised

basement A basement or cellar is one or more floors of a building that are completely or partly below the ground floor. It generally is used as a utility space for a building, where such items as the furnace, water heater, breaker panel or fuse box, ...

. It is finished in

brick A brick is a type of block used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a block composed of dried clay, but is now also used informally to denote other chemically cured cons ...

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...

and

terra cotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracotta ...

. The design includes projecting

portico A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cult ...

s with

pediment Pediments are gables, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the lintel, or entablature, if supported by columns. Pediments can contain an overdoor and are usually topped by hood moulds. A pedimen ...

s on all four

elevations The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § Vert ...

each with six

ionic column The Ionic order is one of the three canonic orders of classical architecture, the other two being the Doric and the Corinthian. There are two lesser orders: the Tuscan (a plainer Doric), and the rich variant of Corinthian called the composite or ...

s.Texas Escapes page for Anderson County Courthouse
/ref> The courthouse underwent major restoration in 1986 and was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

on September 28, 1992.

References

External links

County courthouses in Texas Courthouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Texas Buildings and structures in Anderson County, Texas Neoclassical architecture in Texas National Register of Historic Places in Anderson County, Texas {{Texas-NRHP-stub

See also

References

External links