Sherman County Courthouse
Stratford, Sherman County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The Texas Legislature created Sherman County in 1876, naming it for Texas Revolutionary soldier Sidney Sherman. The county was attached to Oldham County for judicial purposes until 1889, when there was sufficient population to organize. The first county seat was at Coldwater, a community founded near the geographic center of the county by the Loomis family. In 1890, a one-story stone courthouse was built. Coldwater soon boasted a post office, the county jail, a hotel, mercantile store and newspaper. In 1901, Stratford, located in the northwest part of the county on the newly constructed Rock Island Railroad, won a controversial election to move the county seat from Coldwater. Officials moved the county records during the night and held a special session of Commissioners Court to secure the rights to the county seat. After the controversy faded, a two-story frame courthouse with cupola was built at this site. Fire destroyed the frame courthouse in April 1922. In June, Sherman County citizens voted on two important issues. First, an election was held on whether to move the county seat from Stratford to Texhoma, also on the rock island along the Oklahoma border. Stratford prevailed by a vote of 370 to 209. A week later, $62,500 in bonds for a new courthouse was approved by a vote of 322 to 81. The commissioners court chose the Amarillo firm of Parker & Rittenberry as architects and J. W. Mordecai as contractor. Commissioners Court met in the Christian Church until construction was complete in summer 1923. The two-story concrete courthouse with raised basement displays classical revival styling in its symmetrical facades and ionic columns. The exterior is running bond brick with cast stone detailing. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2008
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Created in 1876 and named for Texas Revolutionary soldier Sidney Sherman, this Panhandle county organized in 1889 with its first seat at Coldwater, near its geographic center. When the Rock Island Railroad reached Stratford in the northwest corner, that town won a contested 1901 election and officials spirited the county records away by night. After fire destroyed a frame courthouse in 1922, voters kept the seat at Stratford and funded the classical-revival courthouse built here in 1923.
Why it matters
Sherman County's courthouse story shows how the arrival of the railroad could relocate the very center of local government, a pattern that reshaped town fortunes across the settling Great Plains.
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Related people
- · Sidney Sherman
Themes & tags
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