Sherwood Courthouse
Sherwood, Irion County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(Built 1900-1901) First permanent courthouse for Irion County, locally organized 1889. Replaced temporary housing in several buildings. Site was gift of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Ripley. Contractors: Martin and Moody. Stone was quarried nearby. Courthouse was used for dances, teachers' institutes, community events; yard, for summer socials. Enclosed to keep out grazing stock, approach was by a stile over fence beside which were water troughs and hitching posts for teams and saddle horses. A 1936 election made Mertzon county seat. Once pride of area, this is now a community center. (1971)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Built of locally quarried stone in 1900–1901, this was the first permanent courthouse for Irion County, organized in 1889, replacing a string of temporary quarters. It served as far more than a seat of justice — its rooms and yard hosted dances, teachers' institutes, and summer socials, ringed by a fence and stile to keep grazing stock out and hitching posts for the horses. When a 1936 election moved the county seat to Mertzon, the proud building found new life as a community center.
Why it matters
The old courthouse marks the birth of local government on the West Texas frontier and the fate of the many small towns that withered once they lost the county seat.
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Related events
- · County seat election of 1936
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Irion County
Mertzon, TX
Irion County was created in 1889 and organized that same April, part of the steady subdivision of West Texas as settlement pushed onto the plains. It honors Robert Anderson Irion, who came to Texas in 1833, settled at Nacogdoches, and served in the First Texas Congress before becoming Secretary of State under President Sam Houston in 1837–38. Sherwood was named the original county seat. The marker ties the modern county to one of the Republic of Texas's founding statesmen.
Knickerbocker
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Drawn by Dove Creek's water and irrigable land, farmers and stockmen settled this West Texas valley in the 1870s, beginning with the Baze brothers' 1875 irrigation ditch dug to supply nearby Fort Concho. In 1877 New York sheepmen named their ranch—and later the town—for Washington Irving's character Diedrich Knickerbocker, and by 1890 the community boasted stores, hotels, churches, and schools. Like many rural West Texas towns, it faded as automobiles and better roads pulled residents toward San Angelo.
Arden Community
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Arden took its name from John Arden, a sheep raiser who reached this west Texas range in 1876, and grew into a ranching community as homesteaders filtered in after 1900. Neighbors shared a schoolhouse for Baptist, Church of Christ, and Methodist worship and gathered for camp meetings at a creekside grove. A string of droughts steadily drained the settlement — the post office closed in 1942 and the school in 1947 — leaving Arden among the many west Texas communities that faded back into open country.
Christoval
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