Ellis County Courthouse
Waxahachie, Ellis County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Built 1895-1897 of Texas granite, limestone, marble. Over east door, sculptor carved face of beautiful local girl he admired. Example of Romanesque Revival building, Victorian period. The architect was J. Reilly Gordon.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Rising from Texas granite, limestone, and marble between 1895 and 1897, the Ellis County Courthouse is a soaring example of Romanesque Revival design by noted architect J. Riely Gordon. Local legend holds that a sculptor carved the face of a beautiful local woman he admired above the east door — a romantic flourish on one of the era's grandest civic buildings.
Why it matters
Monumental county courthouses like this one embodied the ambition and prosperity of growing Texas towns during the Gilded Age.
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Related people
- · J. Riely Gordon
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Ellis County Courthouse
Waxahachie, TX
Ellis County went through three modest courthouses — cedar logs in 1850, then buildings in 1853 and 1874 — before commissioning San Antonio architect James Riely Gordon to design this fourth one in 1894. Its cornerstone laid on July 4, 1895, the courthouse was built of Central Texas granite and Pecos River red sandstone, with entrances oriented to the true compass points and faces carved by European stonemasons. Gordon's Richardsonian Romanesque masterpiece set a new standard for public buildings across Texas.
First Presbyterian Church Building
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The Rev. J.A. Smiley gathered sixteen charter members into Waxahachie's First Presbyterian Church in 1871, and after an 1876 building the congregation raised this classical sanctuary in 1916–17, with modified Doric columns, beaux-arts detailing, and art-glass windows. When the church merged with another in 1979, the building became a fine-arts museum under the Ellis County Art Association. Its dignified front still commands its corner of the county seat.
St. Paul's Episcopal
Waxahachie, TX
St. Paul's is Waxahachie's oldest church, dedicated in 1885 by the pioneer Episcopal bishop A.C. Garrett. Its lancet windows and doors mark it as a work of Gothic Revival taste on the North Texas prairie. More than a century on, it remains a landmark of the town's beginnings.
Presiding Elder's House
Waxahachie, TX
This 1901 house was built for Mrs. M.J. Cooke, who sold it the next year to the Methodist Conference as a parsonage for the presiding elder overseeing the Waxahachie district. For more than four decades it housed thirteen church officials, beginning with the Rev. O.F. Sensabaugh, its late-Victorian porch, gables, and windows marking the standing of the district superintendent. It is a rare survivor among the administrative homes of organized frontier Methodism.