Dimmit County Courthouse
Carrizo Springs, Dimmit County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Named for one of the framers of the Texas Declaration of Independence, Dimmit County was created from four other counties in 1858. The county was formally organized in 1880, and Carrizo Springs was chosen as the county seat. On November 12, 1883, the county commissioners court chose noted architect Alfred Giles to design a permanent courthouse for Dimmit County. Later that month, on November 26, the court reversed its decision and selected J. C. Breeding & Sons of San Antonio to act as both architects and builders. Probably working from Giles' initial plans, they erected a structure which featured a double gallery porch. The building's cubical form and Italianate detailing resemble Giles' designs for other Texas courthouses erected about the same time. By the 1920s, the thriving Dimmit County needed a larger government facility. The commissioners court called in Henry T. Phelps to design an expansion. At Phelps' instruction, the San Antonio Construction Company demolished the north second story wall, removing exterior rock from the lower north and south walls and adding new, longer wings on each end. As was his custom, Phelps worked along a Classical Revival plan, requiring a symmetrical façade. He relocated the main entrance to the west side of the building, highlighting it with four massive columns and a recessed porch. The 19th century windows were widened, and Phelps changed the Second Empire roofline to an elaborate cornice. The architectural character of the Dimmit County Courthouse was transformed from a simplified Italianate style of the late 1880s to the restrained Classicism popular in the 1920s. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark-2000
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Named for one of the framers of the Texas Declaration of Independence, Dimmit County was carved from four counties in 1858 and organized in 1880 with Carrizo Springs as its seat. Its courthouse, commissioned in 1883 and built by J. C. Breeding & Sons on plans likely drawn from architect Alfred Giles, wore an Italianate look until the booming county hired Henry T. Phelps to enlarge and recast it in restrained Classical Revival style in the 1920s. The transformation left a single building embodying two eras of Texas civic architecture.
Why it matters
The courthouse charts the growth of a south Texas frontier county from its founding through the prosperity of the early 20th century.
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Related people
- · Alfred Giles
- · Henry T. Phelps
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Dimmit County
Carrizo Springs, TX
Created by the Texas legislature in 1858 but not formally organized until 1880, Dimmit County honors Philip Dimmitt, a trader and captain in the army of the Republic of Texas who died in 1841. The long gap between creation and organization reflects how sparsely populated this stretch of South Texas remained through the mid-nineteenth century. Carrizo Springs became the county seat.
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Organized in 1878, this was the first church raised by Texas Baptists west of the Nueces River, a frontier region still thinly settled after the Civil War. Between 1888 and 1891 the congregation built its home by hand on land donated by Levi and Matilda English, burning their own brick and lime and hauling lumber all the way from Cotulla. Among the seven charter members were two former Methodists and a man who had been enslaved, a small window onto the mixed community that built the young town.
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