Sabine County Courthouse
Hemphill, Sabine County, Texas
Marker Inscription
An 1858 election called for Sabine County offices to be moved from Milam (7 mi. N) to this more central location. The new county seat, Hemphill, was named for former Texas Supreme Court Justice John Hemphill. The first courthouse at this site burned in 1875 and was replaced by a larger frame structure. The present building was started in 1906 by N. A. Dawson under the direction of James Barney Lewis. The two two floors were rebuilt following a fire in 1909 and a remodeling of the structure was completed in 1938 by the Works Progress Administration.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
An 1858 election moved the seat of Sabine County from Milam to a more central spot, and the new town was named Hemphill for former Texas Supreme Court Justice John Hemphill. The first courthouse burned in 1875 and was replaced by a larger frame building, and the present structure was begun in 1906 by N. A. Dawson. After a 1909 fire, its upper floors were rebuilt, and the Works Progress Administration completed a remodeling in 1938.
Why it matters
A county courthouse's cycle of fires, rebuildings, and New Deal renovation traces the enduring role of the seat of local government at the center of rural American life.
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Related people
- · John Hemphill
- · N. A. Dawson
- · James Barney Lewis
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Sabine County
Hemphill, TX
One of the original 23 counties of the Republic of Texas, Sabine County takes its name from the river that marks the Louisiana border. Long home to the Ais people of the Caddo, the area saw Spanish explorers pass through and later became a gateway for American settlers—Stephen F. Austin among them—entering Mexican Texas. Formed in 1837, the county built its economy on timber floated down the Sabine to sawmills, weathered the Great Depression and years without a bank, and revived when the vast Toledo Bend Reservoir rose in the 1960s.
Hemphill
Hemphill, TX
Sabine County organized the town of Hemphill in 1858, naming it for Texas Supreme Court Justice John Hemphill and moving the county seat to the county's center on land surveyed from the Slaughter tract. A post office, courthouses, a bank, and Sabine Valley University followed, while the nearby Knox Sawmill drove steady growth into the twentieth century. When the mill burned in 1937 and postwar migration pulled people toward cities, Hemphill's population declined, though it remains the seat of Sabine County government.
Sabine County Jail
Hemphill, TX
Sabine County commissioners contracted for this two-story Victorian jail in 1903, completing it the following year with bricks from Henry Huffman's local kiln. Its original interior even included an area for hangings, a grim reminder of frontier justice, before the San Antonio-based Southern Steel Company remodeled the cells in 1925. The building was recorded as a Texas Historic Landmark in 1980.
Hemphill Cemetery
Hemphill, TX
Laid out soon after Hemphill was founded in 1858, this cemetery reads like a directory of the young town's builders. Its oldest marked grave, from 1867, belongs to Marier C. Morris, daughter of pioneer physician Jubal H. Ragan, and though an 1875 courthouse fire destroyed the early records, tradition credits Simon Newsome Beckcom and William T. Morris with donating the original ground. Among those buried here are war veterans, merchants, community leaders, and state legislator Simeon R. Williams.