Tarrant County Courthouse

100 E Weatherford - 1895; restored - 1983 (NR, RTHL, SAL)

This is one of architectural masterpieces of our city. It serves as the terminus of Main Street and it sits high on the bluff of the Trinity River. It was designed by Gunn and Curtiss Architects of Kansas City and it is a striking example of American Beaux Arts Design. Probst & Co. from Chicago was the General Contractor.  It was modeled after the Texas Capitol Building in Austin and uses pink granite. It was one of the first structural steel framed buildings built in the Southwestern United States. The courthouse is 194 feet in height. Over the years, many bad remodel jobs were done, including adding mezzanines, covering up the rotunda in the center, painting the copper dome, outlining the dome in neon, and adding the Civil Courts Building on the west side. The architect that restored the building in 1983 was Ward Bogard. If you look carefully at the building, you will notice some of the windows in the basement have bars over them. These were on the windows of the prisoner holding cells when the building was constructed. The exterior of the building was used in the filming of the CBS television series Walker, Texas Ranger (April 1993-May 2001).

View from Trinity Bluffs taken by Doug Sutherland
Rotunda from First Floor
Looking up from First Floor
Top of Rotunda
First Floor Corridor
Second Floor Corridor at Rotunda

Historic Photographs from the Jack White Collection:
1876 Courthouse Building
Construction photo, about 1894
1922 Photograph
John Stryker Photograph