Year Built: 1928
Architect: Voelcker and Dixon, Inc.
The Callahan County Courthouse is located in Baird, Texas, its county seat.
The County is named for James Hughes Callahan, an American soldier in the Texas Revolution, survivor of the Goliad Massacre, and leader of the Callahan expedition.
The Callahan Divide, named for Callahan County, is a range of hills that extend twenty-six miles from west to southeast through Taylor and Callahan counties and that separate the Brazos River from the Colorado River. The divide begins at the emergence of Cedar Creek, three miles east of Mountain Pass in central Taylor County, proceeds through Buffalo Gap, and concludes near Lytle Gap at the intersection of Farm roads 1178 and 36.
The Callahan Expedition occurred in October 1855, when James Hughes Callahan led a force of 111 men into Mexico near Piedras Negras, Coahuila. On July 5, 1855, Governor Elisha M. Pease authorized Callahan to organize a force to punish marauding Indians, who reportedly had increased their raids that summer when 3,000 United States troops were moved from the Texas frontier to Kansas. Callahan mustered his force into service on July 20. As Texas citizens continued to appeal to Pease for defense against the Indian raids, Callahan and his men left Bandera Pass on September 18 headed for the Rio Grande. The purpose of the invasion was to punish Lipan Apache Indians who reportedly had raided along the Texas frontier during the summer and fall of 1855, then returned to Mexico, where they were protected by the authorities.
Author Robert E. Howard, widely regarded as the creator of the sword and sorcery genre and creator of Conan the Barbarian, grew up in Callahan County. Howard sometimes penned under the name Steve Costigan. The Howard home is in Cross Plains, Texas and is now the Robert E. Howard Museum. Howard’s mother fell into a coma after battling tuberculosis in 1936. The nurses informed Howard that his mother will not be waking up from the coma. He then went outside, got in his car, and committed suicide. His mother passed away the next day. A copy of his suicide note is on display with his typewriter in the museum.
