Grimes County Courthouse
Anderson, Grimes County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Unique Victorian Texas public building. Third courthouse here. Site, in an 1824 land grant from Mexico, was donated 1850 by Henry Fanthorp, first permanent settler in county. Built 1891 of hand-molded brick with native stone trim. Vault is same one used in previous buildings; has twice withstood fires. Tried here in 1930s, a Clyde Barrow gang member vowed he'd see court in infernal regions. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1965
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The third courthouse to stand on this Anderson square, this hand-molded brick Victorian building rose in 1891 on land granted by Mexico in 1824 and donated in 1850 by Henry Fanthorp, the county's first permanent settler. Its vault, salvaged from earlier buildings, twice survived fire. Local lore even records a Clyde Barrow gang member, tried here in the 1930s, cursing that he'd next see the court in the infernal regions.
Why it matters
A rare surviving Victorian county courthouse, it anchors more than a century of Grimes County government on a site whose title reaches back to Mexican Texas.
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Related people
- · Henry Fanthorp
- · Clyde Barrow
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Grimes County
Anderson, TX
The ground here carries layers of Texas history: a road used in 1690 by Spanish explorer Alonso de León, the 1821 arrival of settler Andrew Millican, and Henry Fanthorp's inn and post office of the 1830s. The town took its name from Kenneth Anderson, the Republic of Texas's last vice-president, who died at Fanthorp's inn in 1845. Organized in 1846 and named for Declaration signer Jesse Grimes, the county even ran a gun factory and supplied troops during the Civil War.
In Memory of_Colonel Benjamin Fort Smith_and all other pioneers
Anderson, TX
Erected by the State of Texas in 1936, this monument honors the pioneers of the Grimes County vicinity who shaped the Republic of Texas. Its two faces name veterans of the War of 1812 and the Black Hawk War, delegates to the conventions that pressed for independence, signers of the Texas Declaration, martyrs of the Alamo, and heroes of San Jacinto. Among them are figures like Jesse Grimes and a woman who sewed a flag for the Texas army.
Fanthorp Inn
Anderson, TX
Henry Fanthorp built this structure in 1834 as a home for his bride, Rachel Kennard, then enlarged it into an inn as travelers multiplied. It housed the region's first mercantile store and, from 1835, its first post office, standing at the crossroads where stage lines from Houston and between Nacogdoches and Austin met. Here Kenneth Lewis Anderson, vice-president of the Republic of Texas, died in July 1845.
Kenneth Lewis Anderson
Anderson, TX
Kenneth Lewis Anderson rose through the young Republic of Texas as a district judge, Speaker of the House, and finally its last Vice President before his death in 1845, the year Texas moved toward statehood. The town of Fanthorp was renamed Anderson in his honor, and this state-erected memorial also remembers his wife, Patience Burdett Anderson. His career spanned the brief, turbulent life of an independent Texas nation.