Crosby County Courthouse (Crosbyton)

Posted on by Trey Wilson -- San Antonio Real Estate Attorney
                        
                                                     
                    

Year Built: 1914

Architect: M. L. Waller

The Crosby County Courthouse is located in Crosbyton, Texas.

Text from Historic Marker “Crosby County Courthouses” (1966)

Crosby County, created in 1876 and organized 1886, had its first county seat at Estacado (founded 1879 by a colony of Quakers). It was on a mail and stage road, in the northeast corner of the county. Freight hauling of materials was slow. County offices were in dugouts, shacks and wagons for two years, until the first courthouse could be completed in 1888. The second county seat was established in 1890 at Emma (named for the fiancee of R. L. Stringfellow, one of the town’s promoters), nine miles west of here. The courthouse at Estacado was taken down, moved and rebuilt at cost of $3,000. It served 20 years. When the Crosbyton-South Plains Railroad was built in 1910, Emma was four miles off its route. Crosbyton won an election as the new county seat, and Julian Bassett (one of the founders of Crosbyton) donated a site for the courthouse. The county court met in the schoolhouse until the building of the present courthouse and jail in 1914. County judge at that time was Pink Parrish. Commissioners were John K. Fullingim, W. E. McLaughlin, J. A. Noble and R. M. Wheeler.

Text from the Historic Marker (2000):

Two years after Crosby County voters chose the new town of Crosbyton as their county seat in 1910, the courts finally resolved the subsequent election disputes, and the Crosby County commissioners set about the business of constructing a new courthouse. Fort Worth architect M. L. Waller designed this building in the Neo-Classical style, featuring a full-height entry with triangular pediment supported by columns. Contractor S. Goodrum of Sweetwater completed the courthouse in late 1914, and it has served as the center of politics and government in Crosby County since that time.

We visited this courthouse just ahead of a Texas plains thunderstorm. The sky was darkening and the wind was blowing. Not ideal lighting,  but we really enjoyed the manicured lawn and Classical style of the structure.