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Review
January
2005
Texas' Court
Houses as Calendar Art
By Alex Burton
The
following story appeared in the January 2005 issue of Senior News Source. The
author, Alex Burton, is a long-time Texas television-radio commentator, newsman
and host, as well as author of a book of a selection of several of his
outstanding radio essays.
Here's one for the history buffs
who like their history illustrated.
Bill Morgan, a Dallas County
resident, former news buddy of mine and former information officer for
Congressman John Bryant, is a fine writer, good researcher and consummate
artist. He, at one time, authored and illustrated a comic strip for daily
newspapers nationwide called "Sports Day." I hope this establishes his bona
fides.
Bill took to making illustrated calendars some years ago. He
would go to a county seat wherever that might be in the state, draw a picture
of the local court house. Then he would research and write a piece to explain
the local history around such places and palaces.
He did not illustrate
and research all 254 counties and their court houses, but he did work up more
than 80 of the best buildings the state has to offer. For his last calendar and
a follow-up coffee-table book titled "Old Friends: Great Texas Courthouses" he
called on almost 100 other Texans who share his enthusiasm for court houses.
They were the folks who phoned or wrote him that they had visited all 254 Texas
counties to view their court houses. Bill sent them ballots asking them to vote
their favorites, since they were the only people who could be identified as
having actually seen every Texas court house and tallied the results of the
responders to come up with the winners.
He had prepared fine
reproductions of the top 12 finishers in his poll. He is offering the prints of
the winners as a set or as singles, and they're suitable for framing and
hanging on a wall. These illustrated court houses are as they were when they
were in their prime. Courthouses that have had their towers replaced or
restored since the balloting and, consequently, didn't make the top 12, include
Jasper, Bell, Milam, Goliad and Donley Counties, with several other
restorations now underway or in the planning stage.
Many other court
houses have had extensive "improvements" in the past and then recently have had
extensive restoration to remove the "improvements" and put the place back
together again the way it looked when the county originally took possession.
I'd think that law offices and businesses that want to make their reception or
lobby area look smart would buy a set of these 17 x 11 inch colored drawings to
hang on their walls.
Bill discovered in small communities when he would
begin his sketching out on the hood of his car that locals would come by to see
what he was doing and would offer all kinds of information and history on the
courthouse and the people who built and provided a host of other stories
surrounding the seat of local government.
There are some nifty stories
Morgan found while doing his painting and research. For instance: The partners
who had a contract to build the Parker County Courthouse got into a fight over
a lady who was married to one of them. The result of the fight was that one
partner wound up dead.
One county had a bond election for a half
million dollars, but the winning bid to build it came in at only 380 thousand
dollars and the whole commissioners court lost the next election because the
final tab was 420 thousand dollars--they spent 80 thousand dollars less that
the citizens voted, but 40 thousand more than the first bid called for. We must
suppose that the voters figured there MUST have been something else
involved.
For students of Texas history the twelve court house set is a
must, just as they would go a long way toward smartening up any office or
business reception and lobby areas.
Call Bill Morgan at 972-203-1752 or
maybe you could write him at 116 Sunview, Sunnyvale, TX. (Ed. note--his email
address is billvene@sbcglobal.net).
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