The Anderson County Courthouse is a historic

courthouse A courthouse or court house is a structure which houses judicial functions for a governmental entity such as a state, region, province, county, prefecture, regency, or similar governmental unit. A courthouse is home to one or more courtrooms, ...

located at 1 Public Square in

Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...

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 microp ...

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

Austin Austin refers to: Common meanings * Austin, Texas, United States, a city * Austin (given name), a list of people and fictional characters * Austin (surname), a list of people and fictional characters * Austin Motor Company, a British car manufac ...

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 ...

s Charles Henry Page and Louis Charles Page designed the structure. Workers oversaw the erection in 1913 and 1914, and the finished building dedicated on December 20, 1914, at a cost of approximately $250,000. Anderson County was created by the

Texas Legislature The Texas State Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. 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 p ...

on March 24, 1846, and named for former

Republic of Texas The Republic of Texas (), or simply Texas, was a country in North America that existed for close to 10 years, from March 2, 1836, to February 19, 1846. Texas shared borders with Centralist Republic of Mexico, the Republic of the Rio Grande, an ...

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 (1829-1914) of Waco. It was destroyed by

arson Arson is the act 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, watercr ...

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 dome with an outer dome surmounted by

Lady Justice Lady Justice () 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 personificat ...

. The building is three stories with a raised

basement A basement is any Storey, floor of a building that is not above the grade plane. Especially in residential buildings, it often is used as a utility space for a building, where such items as the Furnace (house heating), furnace, water heating, ...

. It is finished in

brick A brick is a type of construction material used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a unit primarily composed of clay. But is now also used informally to denote building un ...

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 Wale ...

and

terra cotta Terracotta, also known as terra cotta or terra-cotta (; ; ), is a clay-based Vitrification#Ceramics, non-vitreous ceramicOED, "Terracotta""Terracotta" MFA Boston, "Cameo" database fired at relatively low temperatures. It is therefore a term used ...

. 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 cu ...

s with

pediment Pediments are a form of gable in classical architecture, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the cornice (an elaborated lintel), or entablature if supported by columns.Summerson, 130 In an ...

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 § ...

each with six ionic columns.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 Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

on September 28, 1992.

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External links

County courthouses in Texas Courthouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Texas Neoclassical architecture in Texas National Register of Historic Places in Anderson County, Texas 1914 establishments in Texas Government buildings completed in 1914 Recorded Texas Historic Landmarks Palestine, Texas {{Texas-NRHP-stub

See also

References

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External links