Fannin County Courthouses
Bonham, Fannin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Commissioners Court first met at Jacob Black's cabin on Feb. 26, 1836, before Fannin County was officially organized. In 1838 Warren (near present Ambrose in Grayson County) was named the county seat. The courthouse built there in 1840 was a two-story oak and cedar structure with rough plank floors. In 1843 the county seat was moved to Bois d'Arc; town's name was changed to Bonham, for an Alamo hero, the next year. Judge John P. Simpson donated land for the small log courthouse of 1843. Later another cabin was built with a breezeway connecting the two. In the early courthouse jurors sat above the courtroom in a loft that could be reached only by an outside ladder. This log building served until 1881 when a two-story brick structure was erected at the same location. This was replaced in 1888 by a 3-story courthouse made of native stone from Gober, south of Bonham, and built by Scottish-born stonemasons Kane and Cormack. Fire in 1929 destroyed the clock steeple, and the building was remodeled. Using part of the 1888 structure, this courthouse was constructed in 1965-66 with a facade of Leuders stone. It was dedicated by Governor John Connally.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Fannin County's seat of justice began humbly — the commissioners first met at Jacob Black's cabin in early 1836, before the county was even organized. As the seat migrated from Warren to Bois d'Arc (renamed Bonham for an Alamo hero), the courthouse evolved from oak-and-cedar and log structures, one with a jury loft reachable only by an outside ladder, to a stone-and-brick succession. Scottish stonemasons Kane and Cormack built the striking 1888 courthouse of native Gober stone; after a 1929 fire, its remains were incorporated into the Leuders-stone building dedicated by Governor John Connally in 1966.
Why it matters
A county's courthouses trace the maturing of frontier government from a borrowed cabin to monumental civic architecture, a pattern repeated across the settling of Texas and the West.
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Related people
- · Jacob Black
- · John P. Simpson
- · James Butler Bonham
- · John Connally
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Fannin County
Bonham, TX
Anglo-American settlers reached this stretch of the Red River by steamboat in 1836, and Fannin County was created the next year, organized in 1838. It honors James W. Fannin, executed with his surrendered command at Goliad in March 1836, one of the darkest episodes of the Texas Revolution. County officials first met at Jacob Black's cabin, and the seat wandered from Warren to Bois d'Arc — renamed Bonham in 1844 for Alamo defender James Butler Bonham.
Old W. W. Brownlee Home
Bonham, TX
This Bonham home was built in 1872 with lumber hauled overland from Jefferson, then a major East Texas shipping town, before railroads reached the interior. A second story was added later, and the house was purchased by Alex Longmire in 1946. It was recorded as a Texas Historic Landmark in 1968.
First Baptist Church
Bonham, TX
Organized in 1852 with six members, Bonham's First Baptist Church began in a log building that doubled as the town's school — a common frugality on the Texas frontier, where an Indian trail still ran nearby. Early converts were baptized in a local pool, and the congregation generously shared its space with other denominations. A succession of ever-larger buildings followed, one of them dedicated in 1921 by the renowned evangelist George W. Truett.
Trinity Episcopal Church
Bonham, TX
Episcopal missionaries reached Fannin County in the mid-1870s, and by 1877 they had organized Trinity as a mission in Bonham, worshipping in members' homes and borrowed church buildings. The congregation raised a frame church in 1883—early worshippers sat on rough planks before a plank-and-strip altar—and won full parish status in 1885. After fire destroyed the historic structure in 1961, they rebuilt a cedar-clad church echoing the original.