Jones County Courthouse
Anson, Jones County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The Seventh Texas Legislature created Jones County in 1858 and named it for Anson Jones, the last president of the Republic of Texas. The Civil War, Reconstruction, and the area's untamed wilderness combined to postpone the county's formal organization until 1881. Voters selected Jones City, later renamed Anson, as permanent county seat. The first permanent courthouse was a small frame building, which served until the county purchased a hotel in 1884 for use as a courthouse. An 1886 brick courthouse served the county for the next 24 years. In late 1909, the Jones County commissioners court, led by County Judge J. R. Stinson, determined that the growth of the county called for a larger courthouse. They selected Elmer G. Withers of Stamford (15 mi. N) and the Texas Building Company of Fort Worth as architect and contractor, respectively. Completed in 1910, the Jones County courthouse is an excellent example of Beaux Arts styling, with influences from the Arts and Crafts movement found in the decorative painting uncovered during a 1990s rehabilitation on the ceiling of the district courtroom. Other notable features include the statue of Lady Justice atop the domed clock tower and the pedimented porticoes with flanking pairs of Ionic columns on each façade. Constructed of brick and Pecos red sandstone, the Jones County courthouse continues to stand as an important part of Anson's architectural heritage and a center of politics and government for the citizens of the county. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2000
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Named for Anson Jones, the last president of the Republic of Texas, Jones County was created in 1858 but not fully organized until 1881—its founding delayed by the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the raw West Texas frontier. After a succession of modest courthouses, the county built its grand Beaux Arts landmark in 1910, crowned by a statue of Lady Justice atop a domed clock tower. Decorative painting later uncovered in the district courtroom reveals Arts and Crafts touches beneath the classical grandeur.
Why it matters
The courthouse marks the moment a frontier county came fully of age, projecting permanence and civic ambition in the architecture of the early twentieth century.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
By the time this courthouse rose in 1910, West Texas was shedding the last of its frontier skin. Jones County had been carved out on paper back in 1858, named for a man who had helped steer the young Republic of Texas, but the raw country around Anson stayed sparsely settled for more than two decades. The Civil War pulled men and money east and south; the long, uneven years of Reconstruction that followed left little appetite or capacity for organizing far-flung counties. Not until 1881 did voters finally gather to make the county official and choose a seat of government.
The early twentieth century was a different world. Railroads had stitched the region to the wider nation, cotton and cattle were turning dusty townsites into real towns, and a spirit of civic optimism—what we now call the Progressive era—was sweeping small-town America. Communities that had once made do with a rented room or a frame shack now wanted buildings that announced they were here to stay.
Anson felt that pull. A county that had spent its first years borrowing space—even converting a hotel into a courthouse in 1884—was ready, by 1909, to build something permanent and proud.
People & events
The county's very name carries a story. Anson Jones was the last president of the Republic of Texas, the man who presided over the republic's final chapter before it joined the United States. Naming a brand-new county for him in 1858 was a way of binding this remote stretch of prairie to the larger Texas story.
The courthouse you see today, though, is the work of a later generation. In late 1909 the commissioners court, led by County Judge J. R. Stinson, decided the growing county had outgrown its aging brick courthouse of 1886. They turned to architect Elmer G. Withers of nearby Stamford and to the Texas Building Company of Fort Worth to design and raise something worthy of the moment.
Completed in 1910, the result was a confident exercise in Beaux Arts design. Decades later, a 1990s rehabilitation peeled back the years and uncovered decorative painting on the district courtroom ceiling—an unexpected flourish of the Arts and Crafts sensibility hiding beneath the classical formality. It was a reminder that the people who built this place cared about beauty as well as function.
Its place in the American story
Across America in these years, the county courthouse was more than a place to file deeds and try cases—it was the beating heart of local democracy and often the grandest building for miles. The impulse to crown a small county seat with columns, a dome, and a figure of Lady Justice was a national one, repeated in courthouse squares from the Midwest to the Deep South.
What makes this building tell that story so clearly is its style. Beaux Arts architecture, with its symmetry, its pedimented porticoes, and its paired Ionic columns, was the visual language of American civic ambition in the early 1900s. To build in that idiom, out on the West Texas plains, was to insist that this community belonged to the same nation and the same aspirations as any city hall or capitol.
The courthouse marks a turning point that played out in thousands of American communities: the moment a frontier settlement decided it was no longer temporary. In brick and Pecos red sandstone, Jones County declared that it had come of age.
If you visit
Stand back on the square first and take in the whole composition. Let your eye climb the domed clock tower to the statue of Lady Justice at its peak—she presides over the town the way the building presides over the county.
Walk around all four sides. This is a courthouse designed to be approached from every direction, each façade greeting you with a pedimented porch and flanking pairs of Ionic columns. Notice the warm color and texture of the red sandstone against the brick; it grounds the classical grandeur in the earth of West Texas itself.
If you can step inside, look up in the district courtroom for the decorative painting brought back to light in the 1990s—a small, human touch of craft beneath all that formal symmetry. A courthouse square like this one makes a natural anchor for a day of small-town wandering: it's the kind of place where the architecture alone tells you what the community once hoped to become, and what it still is.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Anson Jones
- · J. R. Stinson
- · Elmer G. Withers
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Jones County
Anson, TX
This corner of west Texas was crossed by an emigrant trail and a frontier military road guarded by Fort Phantom Hill, founded in 1851. The county was named for Anson Jones, a San Jacinto veteran and the last president of the Republic of Texas. Phantom Hill served as a Butterfield Overland Mail station in 1858-61 and then as a Civil War patrol point trying to curb frontier raids, before the county was fully organized in 1881 with Anson as its seat.
First Presbyterian Church Building
Anson, TX
The First Presbyterian Church of Anson was organized in 1882 by the Rev. Donald Frazier and nine charter members. This simple, vernacular sanctuary — the congregation's third — was built in 1929 with modest brick detailing and stained glass. When membership dwindled in the 1970s the congregation dissolved in 1984, and the building was given to the city of Anson to serve as a community museum.
First United Methodist Church of Anson
Anson, TX
This West Texas congregation was gathered in 1882 by a Methodist circuit rider, one of the saddle-worn preachers who carried the faith across the frontier. In 1908 a local builder raised the Romanesque Revival sanctuary that still anchors the town, its bell tower later trimmed down against the prairie winds. For more than a century the church has grown right alongside Anson itself.
Cowboys' Christmas Ball
Anson, TX
In 1885 a dance for cowboys and ladies at the Star Hotel in Anson so inspired visiting writer Larry Chittenden that he penned "The Cowboys' Christmas Ball," a poem naming real people and ranches of 1880s Jones County. Revived in the 1930s, the tradition drew national fame, even reaching the White House lawn, and settled into Pioneer Hall built with WPA help. Held every year with grand marches, waltzes, and period dress, it keeps a piece of frontier Texas alive.