- City:
- Sherman, TX
- Site Type:
- Civic Facilities, Auxiliary Civic Facilities, Courthouses (State & Local)
- New Deal Agencies:
- Public Works Funding, Public Works Administration (PWA)
Description
“Contracts were awarded on December 15, 1934, for the construction of the Grayson County Courthouse. It is a four story and basement building, 140 by 87 feet in plan, and contains on the first floor an assembly room, the tax department, county clerk, auditor, sheriff, the county courtroom, judge’s chambers, and a jury room. On the second floor are two large district courtrooms, offices for the district judge and court reporter, and jury rooms. The third floor contains the upper parts of the courtrooms and jury dormitories, while the top floor is entirely occupied by the jail which is arranged to accommodate 150 prisoners, separated into various classifications.
The building is fireproof throughout, with a reinforced-concrete skeleton frame. The exterior walls are faced with a light cream-colored cordova stone. A set-back of 7 feet between the walls of the top floor and the parapet wall screens the jail windows from the streets.
The project was completed in July 1936 at a construction cost of $298,047 and a project cost of $315,762.”
Source notes
C.W. Short and R. Stanley-Brown. "Public Buildings: A Survey of Architecture of Projects Constructed by Federal and Other Governmental Bodies Between the Years 1933 and 1939 with the Assistance of the Public Works Administration." (1939).Site Details
| Total Cost |
|---|
| $315,762.00 |
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Stephen Taylor
Whitney
This courthouse was built to replace an earlier courthouse burned in 1930 by a mob trying to get to a black prisoner inside. The prisoner was placed into the vault in the district clerk’s office when the fire started; he felt his chances were better inside the vault than with the mob outside. He died when the courthouse burned around the vault. The rioters prevented the fire department from fighting the fire; all that was left of the courthouse were the walls and the vault. The riot was a particularly nasty piece of business, as these things went; it lasted for several days and other buildings were burned as well.
Not Grayson County’s finest hour.
Where is the entrance to the underground tunnels? One spans from jail to bank, but entrance unknown.