First Court in Kimble County
Junction, Kimble County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(Site: 1/2 mi. NW, on main Llano River) Held in spring of 1876, under a live oak tree that had a hive of wild bees in its trunk. The site, "Old Kimbleville," had been suggested as the county seat. District Judge W. A. Blackburn, of Burnet, arrived by horseback. District attorney was Frank Wilks. The jury was seated on two logs. Another log was the judge's bench, and a piece of gnarled live oak limb the gavel. Prisoners awaiting trial were chained to nearby trees. Major trials were for horse thefts. Texas Rangers were on hand to testify and to guard court, as this was during lawless era. (1967)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Kimble County's first court convened in the spring of 1876 in the open air beneath a live oak whose trunk held a hive of wild bees. Judge W. A. Blackburn rode in from Burnet to sit on a log bench, the jury perched on two more logs, and a gnarled oak limb served as his gavel—while prisoners awaiting trial were chained to nearby trees. Texas Rangers stood guard and gave testimony, most of the cases turning on horse theft in a notoriously lawless era.
Why it matters
The scene vividly captures how frontier Texas improvised the institutions of law and order under a tree before the trappings of a courthouse ever arrived.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · W. A. Blackburn
- · Frank Wilks
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
The Killing of Sam Speer
Junction, TX
On Christmas Eve 1876, seventeen-year-old Sam Speer was killed by a band of Indians while driving horses near this spot, his brother's large-caliber rifle failing to fire in the moment. Recorded as the last such killing in Kimble County, the event marked the closing of an era of frontier conflict along the Llano; Speer rests in the North Llano Cemetery.
First Court Tree
Junction, TX
This site marks where, in 1876, one of the first court hearings in newly organized Kimble County was held in the open, presided over by Judge W. A. Blackburn. Texas Rangers stood guard, and in the rough frontier fashion of the day the proceedings were conducted with a tree pressed into service in place of a courthouse. It is a vivid image of law arriving in the Hill Country before its institutions were fully built.
Kimble County Jail
Junction, TX
Built in 1892 as Kimble County's third jail, this two-foot-thick hewn-stone building earned a reputation for being 'as secure as Huntsville State Prison.' Among its many prisoners was Gip Hardin, held here in 1896—brother of the notorious Texas gunman John Wesley Hardin. The fortress-like structure was named a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1964.
First United Methodist Church of Junction
Junction, TX
Early Junction worshippers gathered under brush arbors, and by the 1870s an active Methodist Society hosted circuit-riding preachers like the famously combative 'Fighting Parson' Andrew Jackson Potter. Organized as a mission church in 1881, the congregation built a sanctuary and parsonage in 1889 and, in 1930, a Spanish mission-style church — its building committee including future Texas governor Coke R. Stevenson, who had grown up in the congregation.