St. Luke's Hospital in Houston, Texas has a display honoring Mavis P. Kelsey, Sr., M.D., for visiting and photographing all 254 county courthouses in Texas. (I learned later that he published a book "The Courthouses of Texas" with a page devoted to each county and an image of the courthouse.) I happened across this display a few years ago and was intrigued. Having taken the required course in Texas history during my youth, I'm sure the number of counties, 254, had crossed my mind before. However, looking at a photographic collection of all those courthouses in a corridor of St. Luke's Hospital made an impression on me. I remember thinking that 254 was certainly a lot of counties. It must have taken a lot of time to visit each and every one of them.
Not that I decided then and there to follow Dr. Kelsey's path and duplicate his significant achievement. That would come later. Regardless, this was the moment that idea first crossed my mind.
I am an architect, so the courthouses of Texas were not completely unknown to me. There were many famous, historic Texas courthouses that I had seen in my travels. An avid photographer, I had even shot a few of them.
Then, on Saturday, April 14, 2007 I found myself in Columbus, Texas at a lecture by two friends of mine, Paul Hester and Lisa Hardaway. Both of them are professional photographers and they were speaking at the opening of a show of their work: "Historic Texas Courthouses." Paul and Lisa provided the photographs for a book of that title, by Michael Andrews. In the course of photographing courthouses for the book, Paul and Lisa visited numerous Texas counties, but not all 254 of them. I bought a copy of the book on the spot and began to read it the next day.
Of particular interest to me was the Irion County courthouse in Sherwood, Texas. I'd never heard of the county or the town of Sherwood. I learned that Irion County is west of San Angelo and that Sherwood was the first county seat. A beautiful, 2 story stone courthouse is about all that remains of Sherwood: the county seat was moved to nearby Mertzon in 1936. The image of this long forgotten courthouse in a out of the way county somewhere in the vast expanses of west Texas was something I couldn't forget.
A month later, in May 2007, I was traveling from Abilene to Clovis, NM with my father and my uncle. We decided to take a circuitous between the two cities. Along the way, we stopped in Gail, the county seat of Borden County. Population wise, Borden County is one of the smallest in the state. Gail has about 200 people and the entire county only about 680. But, of course, there is a courthouse. We stopped and admired the building. I took some photos and we moved on. I was interested in this little known and insignificant county but not yet motivated to visit all the 253 other counties in Texas.
It wasn't until May of 2009 that I had the opportunity to visit Sherwood and Mertzon, in Irion County. My uncle, Clark Brannan, and I spent a day driving south and west from his home in Abilene to the likes of Bronte, San Angelo, Sherwood, Mertzon, Sterling City, and Robert Lee. It was a glorious spring day and we had a wonderful time. We were given a personal tour of the Sherwood courthouse by craftsmen restoring the windows in the building. I was now officially hooked on Texas courthouses.
On this trip I photographed each courthouse we visited. I was now commited: I would attempt to visit and photograph all 254 county courthouses in Texas. Actually, it turns out there are more than 254 courthouses. Some counties have multiple courthouses (e.g. Irion). So, the final number of buildings I'll photograph remains unknown.
I can't wait to see the next one.
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