Atascosa County Courthouse
Jourdanton, Atascosa County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This log cabin is a replica of first courthouse built 1856 near Amphion (Navatasco) 9 miles to the orthwest, on site given by Jose Antonio Navarro out of his 1828 grant from Coahuila and Texas. A signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, he helped organize this county. First court term, 1857. First officials: Sheriff, James H. French; Chief Justice, Marcellus French; District Clerk, Edward Walker; County Clerk, Daniel Tobin; Tax Assessor-Collector, Thomas R. Brite; County Treasurer, Baylor Winn; District Attorney, James Paul; District Judge, E.F. Buckner. (1964)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This log cabin replicates Atascosa County's first courthouse, built in 1856 near Amphion on land granted by Jose Antonio Navarro — a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence who helped organize the county. The first court convened in 1857, presided over by a roster of frontier officials whose names the marker preserves: sheriff, chief justice, clerks, and judges of a brand-new South Texas county. It memorializes the moment raw frontier settlement became organized civic government.
Why it matters
The replica marks the birth of county government in South Texas and honors Navarro, one of the few Tejano signers of Texas independence.
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Related people
- · Jose Antonio Navarro
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Atascosa County
Jourdanton, TX
By 1722 the Camino Real—the King's Highway—already ran through this region on its way from the Rio Grande to San Antonio, crossing the boggy ground the Spanish called 'atascosa.' Carved from Bexar County in 1856, Atascosa County took that name for its muddy terrain. Its first county seat, Navatasco, rose on land granted to José Antonio Navarro before the seat moved to Pleasanton and finally Jourdanton, in a county long known for livestock, oil, gas, and strawberries.
Jourdanton United Methodist Church
Jourdanton, TX
When the railroad town of Jourdanton took shape in 1909, its Methodist congregation organized the same year, worshiping first in a tent before trustees bought a corner lot and raised a frame church in 1910. As the community grew, the congregation rebuilt in 1941, moved and replaced its sanctuary over the following decades, and spun off a lively network of women's, men's and youth societies. The present sanctuary dates to 1964.
Old Atascosa County Jail
Jourdanton, TX
When Atascosa County moved its seat to Jourdanton in 1910, officials made do with a rented house for a jail before authorizing this reinforced-concrete, brick-clad lockup in 1915. Designed under courthouse architect Henry T. Phelps and built by San Antonio's Southern Structural Steel Company, it blended crenelated towers and hood-molded windows with living quarters for the sheriff's family. Its second-floor gallows room was built but never used for an execution.
First Baptist Church of Jourdanton
Jourdanton, TX
First Baptist organized in October 1909, just a month after the town of Jourdanton itself was founded, when seven residents gathered under a visiting minister and met in the community schoolhouse. Within a year they built a frame church, and in 1911 the women formed a missionary union that funded state and foreign missions and orphan care. New sanctuaries in 1946 and 1977 and a large worship center in 2003 tracked the congregation's steady growth.